New £2.8m Autac facility completes in Macclesfield

The manufacturer can now begin operations at the 12,200 sq ft Guildford House at Lyme Green Retail Park, as the company triples its footprint with the expansion.

Autac is a family-owned manufacturer that supplies retractable cables to global industries.

The company invested £2.8m into the new facility at Guildford House. Autac will also continue to operate from its existing facility on London Road.

The new warehouse provides Autac’s team with offices, training rooms, and meeting rooms, as well as warehouse space.

CW4.0, a digital transformation support service, assisted Autac in its plans for the warehouse.

The CW4.0 team created a digital simulation of the facility using 3D laser scanning technology, which allowed Autac to evaluate the most productive and efficient layout for its manufacturing processes.

The £5.6m CW4.0 project is delivered in partnership by the University of Liverpool’s Virtual Engineering Centre, Liverpool John Moores University, National Automotive Alliance, and the Science and Technology Facilities Council.

David Lowe, managing director at Autac, said: “Working with CW4.0 opened our eyes to the potential for new technology to help us make informed decisions about the future of our business.

“The support from the team at the Virtual Engineering Centre means we understand our business processes and systems better than ever before and have the confidence that the new layout will be the most effective in helping us to meet the growing demand for our cable solutions.”

Craig Beck, CW4.0 engagement lead at the Virtual Engineering Centre, said: “We were able to provide specialist guidance and support to help Autac prove the business case for its expansion into a larger facility and minimise the risk of any downtime.

“Configuring the most efficient site layout virtually not only avoided costly disruption to the business, but also ensured the management team had peace of mind that it would be operating in the most efficient way from day one.”