Geoff Thomas
Aerospace cabling and wiring is sometimes regarded as a 'Cinderella' part of the aviation industry but John Tinson, who is BICC Brand-Rex's newly- appointed business director, speciality cables, thinks that this is an unfair description.
"We will also be heavily involved in the forthcoming Nimrod refits for Britain's RAF.
"The environments in which our cabling has to operate, faultlessly, can be very hostile indeed, which is a major reason why so many airframe manufacturers are now looking seriously at our optic-fibre products as well as the more traditional copper-core cables.
"Sadly, although Eurofighter is at the cutting-edge of military technology, our latest optic-fibre cabling is far too advanced for it to use, so we'll have to rely on the next generation of equipment to gain market share."
While he's attending the Paris air show, Tinson intends to talk to many potential customers, particularly those based in Europe and South America.
"We have a very good relationship with Dasa in Germany and Alenia in Italy and we're also working closely with Embraer in Brazil so I'm confident that we'll be able to maintain our current growth rate which has been running at around 50%, year on year.
The Americans tend to use extruded cabling so there's an opportunity for us there too as we're one of the only companies to produce both types."
Major
BICC Brand-Rex has its UK headquarters at Glenrothes in Fife, Scotland, while its major manufacturing plants are at Leigh and Helsby in the north of England.
The company employs 900 people worldwide (with offices in Brazil and the Philippines as well as the UK) and it enjoyed sales of £125 million (generating profits of £8 million) in the last financial year.
As well as the aviation market, the company produces structured wiring solutions for the IT market, concentrating on local area networks (LANs) where it is Europe's second-largest supplier of systems under its MillenniuM brand.
Source: Flight Daily News
