A £42k grant from the BIG Productivity fund will help a well-established Cornish engineering technology company to increase its range, productivity and reduce lead times.
RAM Gasket Solutions has been making gaskets and other sealing products in Cornwall since 1973. From its site in Redruth, the company makes products for a wide range of industries, including nuclear technology, food and beverage, farm machinery, and the aerospace and defence sectors.
The company supplies products across a wide range of industry. Its components can be found in diverse applications from satellites to subsea installations, F1 cars and classics, hospitals, ships and nuclear power, to name a few. RAM supports a range of Cornish business as well as supporting Spaceport Cornwall. Over half of its products are exported worldwide.
MD John Hicks said: “If you want to seal between two bits of metal, that’s where we come in.
“We cut two-dimensional shapes from flexible material. We currently list around 1,000 different material variants, and stock about half of that number, and have around 25,000 bespoke tools for cutting out components.
“We always have a continual flow of work at any one time and we are completing around 8,000 to 10,000 parts per day. New customers are coming to us to with new requirements and orders that they need completed quickly every day. We aim to have a basic capability turnaround time of one hour from enquiry to finished and invoiced product.”
Using the grant support from BIG Productivity, as well as its own funding, the company has purchased a computerised cutting and routing twin head table called an Atom FlashCut Twins. The table was originally designed for cutting leather hide and has been specially adapted for gasket cutting. This will give RAM Gasket Solutions additional capacity and joins other tables that are already in use at the business.
BIG Productivity is a £3.1 million fund that offers grants from £2.5k up to £150k to qualifying small and medium-sized businesses in Cornwall to boost their productivity. It is supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Growth Programme and is delivered by Cornwall Development Company.
