Ilfracombe plant reaches ruby anniversary

Lambda UK, leading power supply manufacturer, is celebrating 40 years of manufacturing at its Ilfracombe plant. The Ilfracombe site was opened in 1966 by Coutant, who later merged with Lambda, becoming Coutant Lambda. Over the next 10 years Lambda saw several changes of ownership and most recently was acquired by Japanese electronics giant, TDK Corporation, last year.

Martin Southam, Director of Marketing at Lambda, attributes the company's continuing success to 'our people and products underpinned by the substantial investment of our parent companies'.

He continues: 'Lambda benefits from a very loyal and experienced team of employees with expertise in a multitude of skills'.

'41% of our employees have been with Lambda for 10 or more years and the average length of service is 9 years'.

'We celebrated this anniversary with a barbecue and fun day for all our staff'.

'The Ilfracombe site now employees 300 people in one of the most advanced electronics plants of its kind and investment in the site continues'.

He adds: 'Product innovation has been synonymous with Lambda UK ever since those early days of utilising transistors instead of valves, and the plants at Ilfracombe have played a key role since 1966'.

The beginnings of Lambda can be traced back to the late 1950s when Electrotech Instruments and Coutant Electronics merged, funded by a GBP 25,000 investment from Unitech, a venture capitalist company.

Unitech's Chairman, Peter Curry, saw the potential to capitalise on the change from valve controlled power supplies to the emerging semiconductor transistor controlled models that Coutant was beginning to exploit.

Coutant operated from a 230m2 unit in London with 20 people and recorded GBP 43,000 of sales in their first year - much less than one day's sales for the current Lambda UK - and by 1964 had moved to Reading.

However, with rapidly growing sales of up to GBP 180,000 and an increasing number of employees, a second site was needed and so in 1966 negotiations were completed to open another unit in Ilfracombe.

The initial building at Ilfracombe occupied 500m2 and first year sales were recorded at GBP 500,000.

Now, there are two factories occupying 1950m2 of manufacturing making a significant contribution to TDK and Lambda's overall position as market leader in the industrial power supply market worldwide