3 Jan 2024
For two decades, the mantra was clear. Manufacture overseas to cut costs.
Send designs to China, India, or Eastern Europe, accept the long lead times and communication challenges, and enjoy the lower unit prices. However, that calculation is changing rapidly.
After 75 years of manufacturing in Hampshire, we’ve watched the pendulum swing. The cost advantages that once made overseas manufacturing compelling have eroded significantly.
Rising labour costs in traditional manufacturing hubs, increased shipping costs, unpredictable transit times, tariffs and trade frictions, and the added complexity of distant suppliers are reshaping procurement decisions across the aerospace, defence, space, automotive, and electronics sectors.
More fundamentally, recent global disruptions have exposed the fragility of extended supply chains. When a supplier is 5,000 miles away, small problems become big ones very quickly.
Your component designs represent years of engineering investment and competitive advantage. When you send drawings overseas, you’re trusting that intellectual property to jurisdictions with different legal frameworks and enforcement standards.
We regularly speak with companies that have discovered their proprietary designs being manufactured for competitors, found their innovations copied and sold in other markets, or lost negotiating power when suppliers realised they controlled critical IP.
Legal recourse is expensive, slow, and often ineffective across international borders.
Manufacturing in the UK means your IP remains protected by robust legal frameworks you can actually enforce. Our facilities in Whitchurch and Andover operate under UK law, with clear contractual protections and practical recourse if issues arise.
For defence and aerospace applications where IP security isn’t just a commercial concern but a regulatory requirement, UK-based manufacturing eliminates entire categories of compliance risk.
We are JOSCAR– and Make UK Defence-registered, Cyber Essentials-certified, and operate under AS9100 quality systems that include specific IP protection protocols. Your designs stay secure throughout the manufacturing process.
A component manufactured in China and shipped to the UK carries a significant environmental burden before it even reaches your facility. Container shipping, air freight for urgent deliveries, packaging materials for international transit, and the cumulative impact of extended supply chains all add up.
For companies with net-zero commitments or customers demanding sustainability, these carbon costs matter more and more.
Our Whitchurch and Andover facilities sit within easy reach of Major UK manufacturing centres. Components can be delivered by road, often within 24 hours, eliminating international shipping entirely.
We’ve implemented energy-efficient air compressors, 99% recyclable packaging, swarf recycling programmes, and optimised our automation systems to minimise energy consumption during lights-out manufacturing.
For industries where environmental impact reporting is becoming standard, UK-based manufacturing provides clear, measurable sustainability benefits.
When your supplier is eight time zones away, simple conversations become complex. Engineering changes require days of email exchanges.
Quality issues mean waiting for parts to ship back for inspection. Urgent requirements face minimum lead times measured in weeks, not days.
We’ve taken over numerous projects from overseas suppliers where the breaking point wasn’t quality or cost; it was the inability to respond quickly when circumstances changed.
Based in Hampshire, we are accessible by car from most major UK manufacturing centres. Need to discuss a design change? We can meet face-to-face within hours. Quality concern? Bring the parts in, and we’ll inspect them together.
Our rapid services can deliver prototype quantities within days using the same CNC machines we use for production. When an automotive client needed urgent modifications to a component during a production run, we had their engineering team on-site within two hours. The modified parts were shipped 36 hours later.
That kind of responsiveness is impossible when your supplier is on the other side of the world.
Quality & traceability
UK manufacturing operates under well-established quality frameworks. Our AS 9100:2018 and ISO 9001 certifications mean consistent processes, comprehensive documentation, and full traceability from raw materials through finished components.
For regulated industries, this matters enormously. Our quality inspection protocols meet aerospace and defence standards, and our documentation satisfies even the most demanding compliance requirements.
Overseas suppliers may claim equivalent certifications, but verification and audit trails become significantly more complex across international borders.
When issues arise, direct access to manufacturing teams accelerates resolution. We’ve had customers visit our Whitchurch facility to observe production processes, verify quality procedures, and collaborate on process improvements.
That transparency and accessibility build confidence, impossible to achieve with distant suppliers.
UK manufacturing often appears more expensive when unit prices are compared in isolation. But procurement teams increasingly recognise that unit price represents only part of the true total cost.
Factor in reduced inventory from shorter lead times, eliminated air freight charges for urgent deliveries, lower quality costs from better communication, reduced IP risk and compliance complexity, and measurable carbon footprint reduction, and the economic case for UK manufacturing strengthens considerably.
Our Whitchurch headquarters and Andover facility provide comprehensive CNC machining, assembly, and finishing capabilities. This geographical concentration means short internal lead times and simplified logistics for customers.
Automated pallet systems and lights-out manufacturing enable us to offer competitive production costs while maintaining UK quality standards and working conditions. Technology helps bridge the labour-cost gap that has traditionally favoured overseas manufacturing.
Being locally based means we can participate in your design process, offering value engineering insights that reduce manufacturing costs without compromising functionality. This collaboration is difficult when your supplier is eight time zones away.
The decision to reshore manufacturing isn’t purely economic; it’s strategic. It’s about supply chain resilience, IP security, sustainability commitments, and the agility to respond to changing circumstances.
For many companies, the question is no longer whether to manufacture in the UK, but how quickly they can make the transition.
If you’re evaluating your supply chain strategy and considering UK-based manufacturing, contact our team to discuss your specific needs and learn how we can help.
We’ll provide honest assessments of how our facilities can support your business and deliver the security, sustainability, and responsiveness that distant suppliers simply cannot match.
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3 Jan 2024
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