Radio Manufacturing

One of the foremost policies at Wood & Douglas is that the Company should wherever possible be in control of its own destiny.  

It is for this reason that a visitor to the headquarters site at Baughurst will see a pair of Juki surface mount placement machines busily laying down some 20,000 components per hour and reflowing these in a large seven zone reflow oven.  Capabilities do not stop at electronic manufacture.  The Audix site has a Bridgeport Milling Centre to support our mechanical manufacture. 

For a medium size company this might seem a strange investment to make when the world at large is flooded with sub contract assembly houses. 

Not so.

By keeping the manufacture in-house there are some very important advantages.  

First and foremost is complete control of the design and manufacturing process from engineer to final test and shipping.   By engaging staff across all disciplines at every stage of the manufacturing process, the communications, involvement and product ownership aspects all dramatically improve.  If a placement is failing the engineer can be called, the design office can modify artwork design, change screen apertures, all easily to hand.   The Quality and improvement feedback design loop can be closed quickly and effectively and the inertia to achieve this is minimal.

This benefit is not lost on our customers.   Many of our key clients have placed business with W&D for this very reason.   They may have had a bad experience with 'offshore' manufacture, seen first hand the impact of poor quality controls, the unsanctioned substitution of sub standard components etc.   They no longer want the grief, heartache and the cost associated with sub contract manufacture by a third party.   They want product that works straight out of the box to their specification - everytime.

Wood & Douglas can deliver on such a promise.