Our SMEMA Adaptors now operate in more than 20 Countries
Our SMEMA Adaptor Family, Quentin and Clive, have now been exported to more than twenty countries supporting the rollout of the Hermes Standard and allowing SMT Managers to monitor their production lines.
It's been surreal supporting customers from so many countries I have never visited from our offices in Bournemouth. It has helped I am a night owl so I can support Asia during the night, America in the evening and Europe in the afternoon leaving just the mornings to catch up on sleep.
With the support of a three month Silicon South business accelerator the business was formed in 2016 and product development has been supported by a number of Dorset business support agencies including the Arts University, Barclays Eagle Labs, BCP Council and the Dorset Growth Hub.
The BCP conurbation has had everything I have needed to start a business and develop a product to be exported. We are lucky to have a digital technology cluster meaning all the skills from software development to electrical engineering have been available on our doorstep.
I have previously worked in electronic assemblies as a graduate of Bournemouth University for ASMPT in Weymouth before moving back to Bournemouth to join the digital economy working for the Redweb creative agency. The formation of the business was simply putting the industries and skillsets of my former employers together. This meant I could use the technical talent that already existed in Dorset.
The hardware component of the product was designed by Nick Morilla and manufactured by electronic contract manufacturer CT Production in Poole and other parts have been sourced from British suppliers.
During the year we have hosted work experience for Joe Banford-Jones from Poole High School. He produced new software that is now used by our customer base. We also toured many electronic manufacturing factories in Poole including Yunex Traffic and Pulse-Eight. I am pleased to hear that Joe has secured a degree apprenticeship at Yunex.
Traditionally within these industrial markets products are sold by local distributors. However the company’s products are sold directly to customers via eCommerce platform Smart Factory Direct bypassing the purchasing departments and giving the purchasing power to the end users.
We established the business as a software company but finally creating a physical product really helped engagement and support overnight. The product started to sell itself organically helped with an online presence and good search engine optimisation. It also helped that the product deals with a new niche communication protocol called the Hermes Standard.
This has brought a new string to our bow, but also brought a good problem to have, which is being able to fulfil orders in a timely manner. To keep up with demand Alex Hawkins has joined us at the start of the year as an Apprentice Production Manager handling both product final assembly and order fulfilment.
The Business was Bootstrapped (self funded) by the Founder by working weekend nights until SMEMA Adaptor sales began.
While we have been able to secure business support funding throughout the journey of growing the business, none of it could be spent on my own salary. Bootstrapping the business reserved the weekdays for growing the business and the weekend paid for my own bills.
I had just arrived back from attending a trade show in San Diego and realised with sales increasing the bootstrapping had to finally come to an end. Bootstrapping is a great way of keeping ownership of your business for the long term and I recommend it to anyone wanting to remove debt to the business in the early days but I have to admit it's been an emotional rollercoaster.
This is a brilliant example of how entrepreneurial ambition within the digital industries is thriving within the region. Silicon South exists to raise the recognition and capabilities of the people in the digital and creative industries of Dorset and we are thrilled with the outcome to our support.
Anthony Story, Director, Silicon SouthThe AUB Innovation Studio exists to support Dorset businesses developing and testing prototypes to generate new products and support business growth and sustainability. Growing a new business is no easy task and it is a delight to see 4IR.UK British Systems thriving on the international stage.
Daniel Cox, Head of Innovation and Knowledge Exchange, Arts University BournemouthWe’re very happy that our team at CT Production were able to support with the growth of the business. It's one of the best rewards for the services we offer, when we see self-funded customers succeed and thrive in their area of expertise. We have been able to provide 4IR.UK British Systems with electronics design services, as well as the manufacturing of his electronic assemblies, right from the initial prototypes until now and all from our Dorset facility.
Clare Trevarton, Managing Director, CT Production Ltd
About 4IR.UK British Systems
We are a Smart Factory solutions provider for the SMT Electronics Assembly manufacturing industry. We were founded in 2016 after the support of a seed funded Business Accelerator. We create hardware Adaptors that operate in more than 20 countries that extend the life of SMEMA based manufacturing equipment by providing solutions for production monitoring and supporting data connections to the Hermes Standard and the Connected Factory Exchange CFX. We also develop Software Extensions for the Low-Code No-Code MultiPlug Edge Computing Platform. The flexibility of off-the-shelf software combined with inside industrial experience means that 4IR.UK is ideally placed to anticipate and respond to a factory's changing needs.
