Pictured above: (l-r) Dave Gregory and Shaun Moloney

Atlas Composites are one of five companies involved in an aerospace and defence cluster established by the Midlands Aerospace Alliance (MAA) earlier this year. Following a meeting held this month they report on the important progress made by the cluster group that hopes to see all of them recognized within the SC21 programme in the near future.

Although each individual company develops their Continuous Sustainable Improvement Plan (CSIP) independently they collaboratively review and share best practice over a number of workshops throughout a 12month period.   This month sees the finalisation of the Manufacturing Excellence part of the SC21 programme.  The SC21 is designed to accelerate the competitiveness of the aerospace & defence industry by raising the performance of its supply chains and has three levels, gold, silver and bronze.

Shaun Moloney Atlas Composites MD says, "The collaborative working ethic we have adopted ensures that we can learn from each other to provide an overall better service.  Our individual performances are put forward on to the SC21 website which can then be tracked.  The progress workshops help us with each step of the process, the next step for us being the completion of the Value Stream Mapping (Process Flow Analysis)."

Derbyshire-based Atlas Composites currently hold a Bronze position for Delivery On Time In Full (98%) and are aiming next for Silver. The MAA (Midlands Aerospace Alliance) who lead and facilitate the group welcome initiatives such as SC21 as it differentiates companies from the rest of the chasing pack.  The four other companies within the East Midlands cluster are; Paul Fabrications, Chemring Defence UK, CVI Laser and SL Engineering.