West Midlands-based PP Control & Automation, one of the UK’s leading providers of strategic manufacturing outsourcing solutions, is celebrating a customer milestone with Mazak Europe (www.ppcanda.com).

The company has supplied its 25,000th control system to the global machine tool manufacturer, just a few days after the 25th anniversary of the first order being delivered.

This marks what has been a “transformational” partnership for PP Control & Automation — one that has been worth over £50 million since it impressed Mazak’s Japanese purchasing directors and was included on to their ‘approved supplier’ register in 1993.

Since then, the relationship has developed at pace, and manufacturing is now completed virtually just-in-time, with close communication and design input allowing lead times to be reduced from six weeks to just six days — despite the complexity of the projects increasing.

David Fox, chairman of PP Control & Automation, said: “There are very few business relationships that last 25 years in this day and age, let alone ones where an SME can build such a strategic and mutually beneficial relationship with one of the world’s best manufacturers.

"When Mazak Europe audited us in 1993, we were at just £2 million and employed about 25 people.

"However, we had ambitious plans and a clear continuous-improvement culture, and the work we were doing with Toyota was enough to persuade them that we could meet their quality standards for supplying control systems.”