Tooling technology
A concept-to-cart company which now produces parts for Motorsport, automotive and aerospace industries, Ritchie Engineering Solutions came from humble beginnings. Back in the 1980s, Duncan and Alasdair’s father left his full-time job to follow his passion: producing steam launch engines. From the shed in the back garden, Ritchie worked alongside one other employee John Riffel, to build his business. During this time of manufacturing steam engines and steam plant, Ritchie’s thermodynamic and mechanical engineering expertise lead him to be invited to work on Richard Branson’s hot air balloon in the mid 1980s. Ritchie was tasked to produce the high altitude propane burners and capsule pressurisation equipment, which would fly the balloon from the US to the UK. A world’s first! The balloon successfully completed its journey thanks to the work and innovation of craftsmen and engineers throughout the country, including Ritchie. After the passing of his father, Duncan and Alasdair decided to carry on the legacy of Ritchie Engineering Solutions. Still running from the shed in his mother’s garden, they managed to squeeze in a CNC Lathe and 4axis CNC mill, and from this business began to steadily grow. Alasdair, who had in the meantime completed a degree in engineering design, left his full-time job to team up with Duncan 8 years ago, and since then the brothers have built up Ritchie Engineering into a successful business. Moving on from their mother’s shed, the brothers now have premises in North Essex where they currently have 9 dedicated employees and have invested more than £1.2m in the company. On the road to becoming what is now a much larger operation, Ritchie Engineering Solutions made contact with Ceratizit UK for guidance with machine inserts and tooling. Adam Cross, Technical Sales Engineer for Ceratizit UK, first started visiting
Ritchie Engineering in 2015. Having first started visiting Ritchie Engineering Solutions in the days where they were still based in a shed, Adam has been a constant source of technical support to the brothers. Once Ritchie moved to their new premises and invested in more machines, Adam helped them to solve problems as they arose and worked with the engineers to optimise their processes in order to make profit from what they were producing. Duncan commented how ‘Working with Adam has been invaluable and has been integral to our journey. He never just sells us tools; he solves problems for us and helps us to improve our processes. Working with him has given us the confidence to quote on jobs and be more competitive in the engineering industry. “Their tooling is now an integral part of our everyday machining, so having parts on demand is brilliant for us.”
25 Machinery & Manufacturing
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