Global engineering technologies company Renishaw is evaluating a potential re-organisation of its additive-manufacturing business that would involve co-locating its AM engineering, marketing and commercial activities at its New Mills headquarters site in Gloucestershire (the manufacture of AM systems will continue at the company’s Miskin site, which is near Cardiff, South Wales).

As part of this proposed consolidation of activities, the company’s site at Stone (in Staffordshire) would close at the end of 2019.

Renishaw (www.renishaw.com) has therefore begun a consultation process with 120 affected employees at the Stone site.

If the company decides to close the site, it is hoped that the level of redundancies would be reduced by a number of the affected employees taking up new positions that would be available in Gloucestershire.

These employees would be supported with relocation packages.

William Lee, Renishaw’s chief executive, said: “We have invested heavily in all aspects of AM system design, and we are very pleased with the market adoption of the RenAM 500Q multi-laser machine.

"We have exciting plans for future systems that will further boost the adoption of AM for series production, but in a competitive global business, we need to be agile and efficient in how we bring these new technologies to market.

“Our current thinking is that the most effective way to achieve this would be for our AM technical and commercial teams to be co-located in our Gloucestershire facilities.

"The AM team at the Stone site has made a major contribution to our progress, and we sincerely hope that a large number of them would relocate to our headquarters site if the closure goes ahead.”

The Gloucestershire headquarters site would house an expanded demonstration facility, enabling customers to experience Renishaw’s broad range of industrial metrology and additive manufacturing technologies, covering process development, 3-D printing, finish machining and part verification.