Axiom Product Development Ltd (www.axiompd.co.uk) recently acquired the trade and assets of FRH Technical Engineering Ltd — a successful Chichester-based machining, rapid prototyping and tooling business.

The latter has now been ‘absorbed’ into Axiom, which has made a number of key appointments, resulting in a highly experienced management team with ambitious plans for expansion.

FRH was founded by Frank Hay in 1952 as a pattern-making shop, and it remained a family business for three generations, with Frank’s grandson — Adrian Hay — at the helm for the last 20 years.

Following the purchase, Axiom has kept the family connection, with Tom Hay (great-grandson of the founder) becoming a shareholder and production director of the new business.

Axiom specialises in the design and manufacture of high-quality tooling, patterns, components, manufacturing aids, jigs and fixtures for the automotive, motor-sport, defence, aerospace and marine industries.

Five Formula One teams are customers of Axiom, which makes tooling for the cars’ carbon fibre bodies. Some of this tooling — produced on a machine from Norwich-based Haas Automation UK Ltd (www.haas.co.uk) — has been used to make parts for the Haas F1 Team car.

Axiom is located in a 1,200m² factory near Chichester that was purpose-built for F&H in 1999. This houses eight high-speed Haas machining centres and a fully equipped tool-making facility.

Mr Hay says: “Our first Haas machine was a VF-4. We bought it after taking on an experienced machinist, who had used a wide range of machines and recommended that we buy Haas. We haven’t looked back since.”

Axiom currently has 10 employees, including CAD designers, machinists and experts in prototype tooling.

Mr Hay said: “We do all our own CAD modelling and a lot of prototype-tooling design work, which we send straight to the control of the appropriate Haas machine to make the part.

“Our latest machine is a Haas VF-9 vertical machining centre; this has a 2,134 x 1,016 x 762mm work envelope, giving us the capacity to make full-scale vehicle parts.

“In the last six years, we’ve added five ‘spindles’ to the workshop. This has massively increased our capacity and significantly moved us forward in terms of the technology that we have available. We have also replaced some of our older machines with Haas products.

“The speed they offer — particularly the Super Speed machines with their 15,000rev/min spindles and fast profiling capability — has made a huge difference.

“Using the newer machines with our Vero software, we have been able to cut roughing cycle times on large parts from 5hr to just 30min, and one engraving job has gone from 1hr to 10min. We also find the control easy to use, which is ideal for our apprentices.

“Because the control is universal, once they can run one machine, they can run them all.”

Management input

Axiom recently welcomed Alan Rendle-Eames to the team as managing director and shareholder.

He has over 17 years’ experience in the engineering sector and was formerly the project manager leading a team of five designers at Formaplex, a specialist machining and composites company.

Mr Rendle-Eames had previously spent 14 years at FRH Technical Engineering and was considered the ideal person to oversee the running of the new business.

Meanwhile, Luke Newman joined the Axiom management team as technical director and shareholder.

A qualified tool maker, he was most recently technical sales manager at Formaplex, where he specialised in growing the F1, motor-sport, automotive, defence, aerospace and energy sector accounts.

Axiom Product Development Ltd was set up by Michael Last and Clive Johnson — both experienced CEOs with backgrounds in finance, mergers and acquisitions, plus engineering and manufacturing.

Mr Last, who was CEO at Formaplex and oversaw a period of successful growth and expansion, has experience across a broad range of technology-driven businesses in a variety of industries.

Mr Johnson, a mechanical engineer by training, has managed and grown a number of businesses.

He was CEO at Portsmouth-based Magma Structures, manufacturer of the tallest composite super-yacht masts in the world.