Chamberlin & Hill (www.chamberlin.co.uk), the Walsall-based castings firm that is part of the Chamberlin castings and engineering group, has opened a new site to finish and despatch turbocharger bearing housings made at its main 127-year-old foundry.

The new venture has already created 12 new jobs, and that number will rise to 33 once all three new high-speed machining cells are fully operational. Open Days to unveil the new machining capability were held earlier this month for suppliers, current customers and potential customers.

The Mayor of Walsall, Councillor Kath Phillips, officially opened the ‘state of the art’ machining centre at the first Open Day. She said: “This is a wonderful and exciting investment. It is great for the area and means future jobs for the youth of today.”

Operations director (casting and machining) Lee Shepherd said the new facility meant that Chamberlin could take on projects of all sizes and deliver major savings by reducing scrap and adapting to meet changes in bearing construction and make more-complex designs.

The new facility supports the company’s move into fully machined components and positions Chamberlin, which previously employed 130 people in Walsall, as the only fully integrated supplier of grey iron bearing housings in Europe.

The first machining cell was installed just before Christmas by a team from Germany and started operation at the end of January, with the second currently being commissioned and the third to be installed later in the year.

Chief executive Kevin Nolan said: “The investment in the facility supports Chamberlin’s move into fully machined components and will open up additional growth opportunities.”

Meanwhile, finance director David Roberts said there was space for another three machining lines to be added in the future.

“So far, £4 million had been invested, which will rise to £5 million once the initial three lines are all in operation. It is the biggest investment by the group for many years and has almost doubled the size of the business.”

Mr Nolan said the investment had been made against firm orders, and the spare space gave it the capacity to grow to meet new orders.

“Currently, 95% of Chamberlin & Hill’s output for our automotive turbocharger market goes to export. We mainly supply Europe, but our ambition now is to target the North American market.”