Nuneaton-based NPL Technologies, which has been providing prototype and production tooling services to the foundry industry for more than 40 years, said it had recently reported a 30 per cent increase in business from UK-based foundries.
NPL projects manager Jeff Land, who heads the company's foundry tooling operations, said he attributed the growth to the booming British market for smaller, niche foundries that are able to offer higher levels of technical expertise.
He said: "Since 2000 the bulk of the large foundry contracts have been shipped overseas to low-cost economies in the Far East and Eastern Europe, but NPL is now seeing resurgence in business as smaller, technically adept foundries corner the market for niche prototyping work across a range of industries.
"It is not cost-effective to send this kind of work overseas, and the necessary technical capabilities often cannot be found outside the UK."
"NPL is able to offer these foundries the design expertise, manufacturing support and fast turnaround they need for their highly specialised projects," he added.
The firm is using its knowledge of production casting processes to work with foundries of everything from fast turn-round prototypes through to production intent tooling.
NPL was primarily a foundry tooling designer and manufacturer and, although this still forms a significant part of its business, the company also offers a full-line service encompassing design, development and manufacture of models, patterns, tooling, moulds and components primarily for the automotive, aerospace, motor sport and medical industries.
