The Autins Group is setting up its fifth site in Europe as part of a venture to bring a new high performance insulation material to market. The company make lightweight thermal and acoustic materials for industry.
Autins (www.autins.co.uk) has taken out a lease on a 47,000 sq. ft. factory at the Birch Coppice Business Park in Tamworth. The site will be home to Solar Nonwovens Ltd., the latest company in the Autins portfolio. Solar Nonwovens will be manufacturing lightweight micro-fibre Neptune at the new factory, using innovative technology brought in from Korea.
As part of a £4 million investment in the site, Autins has shipped over a new high tech machine from Korea which was transported in 14 containers, arriving at Tamworth earlier this month (April).
Autins CEO Jim Griffin believes this is a significant milestone for the company. We are delighted to have found a suitable site for Solar Nonwovens to start producing Neptune, he comments. With such large and sophisticated hi tech equipment, it wasnt easy to find a unit that fulfilled all our production needs.
Solar Nonwovens aims to have saleable production up and running by the autumn, with full production of up to three lines in 2017. Neptune can be used to make products quieter and more thermally efficient in numerous sectors including automotive, rail, marine, agriculture and apparel.
Jim adds Neptune is a really exciting product offering superior acoustic, thermal and lightweight properties for a range of applications. As the exclusive European suppliers, Birch Coppice will be the only site where Neptune will be manufactured anywhere across the UK and the continent.
Such are the demands of producing Neptune that a special two mega-watt sub-station is being constructed alongside the Solar Nonwovens unit.
The move tops off an exciting period of growth for the company who are also in the process of establishing a research and development facility at HORIBA MIRA Technology Park in Warwickshire.
The Autins Group has sites in Sweden and Germany as well as its headquarters in Rugby. Best known for developing materials for the automotive and marine sectors, customers include Bentley and JLR. The launch of Solar Nonwovens marks the companys expansion into new markets.