The launch in March was thoroughly enjoyed by all the guests and proved to be the perfect opportunity to showcase the stylish new device. We wish Fertility Focus every success with this ground breaking product which was recently shown at the British Fertility Society meeting.

Find out more about Fertility Focus and the OvuSense

My objectives whilst at the helm include expanding our operations in Hong Kong to enable us to benefit from new emerging technologies and competitively priced manufacturing options, to strengthen the CEM managerial and operations team here in the UK and to establish Corintech as a company with its own range of WiFi standard products.

I hope you’ll enjoy the experience of benefiting from our continued growth and development as a creative, technology driven business.

Sean Wigmore

Managing Director

The awards, judged by the UK's eminent business leaders, placed Corintech Ltd. in the top six UK manufacturers with special reference to their IT system.

Corintech's sophisticated IT system, designed by 123Insight, is easy to use, but comprehensive, and combines a variety of different packages. Its main focus is Enterprise Resource Planning and Customer Relationship Management, but it is also integrated with Access Dimensions accounts and the entire system connects with Corintech's Hong Kong office via CITRIX.

As Sean Wigmore, Corintech Director explains: There were two key benefits that we were able to pass onto our customers immediately. Firstly, some departments went completely paperless. Invoices and order acknowledgements are now generated in PDF format and emailed. Overall we have seen a 40% reduction in paper usage. Secondly, leadtimes were halved. From receiving orders to being able to purchase components, our sales ordering process was taking between 2-3 weeks. We are now able to complete the process in 24 hours .

Corintech proudly accepted their IT in Manufacturing award at the 2010 Manufacturer of the Year awards ceremony that took place on 18th November at Chesford Grange, Kenilworth.

We’ve also been on a recruitment drive and have several new members of staff including a hugely experienced new General Manager – Bryant Ku. Bryant is being assisted by several long standing Corintech colleagues and highly qualified new recruits in Quality Assurance, Purchasing, Design and Engineering.

Our established presence in the Far East allows us to provide our customers with competitively priced, high quality new technology and manufacturing. Independently sourcing Asian manufacturers has well documented pitfalls and horror stories so if you’d like to know more about our operations in Hong Kong please contact our Operations Director Sean Wigmore.sean.wigmore@corintech.com

Corintech has added two seats of version 6.1, each of which enable the design of complex PCBs of up to 2,000 pins combined with an unlimited number of layers.

Pulsonix complements the existing portfolio of design tools at Corintech which include, Altium, Cadstar, VuTrax and SolidWorks. Whilst Pulsonix will become the primary design platform, Corintech will continue to support designs in all of the other packages which will remain available for client selection if preferred.

Already Pulsonix has proven to be a fast and straightforward design tool to use and now provides the optimum design productivity for Corintech and its clients. Of particular use is the large range of import features that allow designs to easily migrate over from other CAD packages into Pulsonix.

Due to the prevailing market conditions in 2008, Biotron (formerly Hitech Electronics) decided to withdraw from the design and manufacture of hybrid microelectronics at its Galway facility.

To ensure continuity of supply for all of its customers Biotron entered into a collaboration agreement with Corintech. Following an intensive 6 month period of new product introduction (NPI) activities, a seamless transfer of manufacturing to Corintech’s UK facility was accomplished.

Michael Timothy, managing director of Biotron said “I am delighted that the transfer of manufacturing has gone so smoothly. Not only has this collaboration led to continuity of supply for my long established customers, it now gives them a secure long-term manufacturing partner. I am confident that they will also benefit from Corintech’s technical design capabilities and routes to manufacturing in Low Cost Regions (LCR’s).

Previously Corintech had successfully purchased and integrated the Waycom Hybrid business into its site in Fordingbridge, Hampshire.

In this new dedicated role, Julia will liaise with customers to ensure that any queries are dealt with promptly, either by her or her team; and proactively provide up to date information on open orders.

On being appointed Julia said “I believe that communication between both the customer and within Corintech is fundamental in providing a professional and efficient service. I have always looked to provide a high quality service by understanding customer needs and endeavouring to exceed their expectations. I look forward to meeting our customers over the coming months “.

Julia has already undertaken a customer satisfaction survey which has led to some new ideas for further improving customer service.

Corintech provides an end to end design and manufacturing service ranging from defining a product concept, through design and on to the manufacture of complex electronic assemblies. This demanding design environment calls for the use of unified software with a complete set of electronic design tools. Not only does Altium have an electronic design suite, but is far more suitable in meeting the clients’ needs of direct 3D output for visualisation in mechanical design packages.

Altium Designer has a market leading and highly efficient PCB design engine which further strengthens its position as the industry's number one complete electronic product development system. All of which make it a faster and far more useful system to obtain the results our clients require by when they need them.

When asked to comment, Tim Waterman, Design Manger, said “I’m delighted with the speed and ease of transfer to the new Altium Designer platform. Its integration has progressed well ahead of initial projections and it is now planned to invest in further seats later this year. With Altium on-board we can now accomplish the design goals of our clients with greater confidence and efficiency. Its use supports the whole ethos of the design team, which is to ensure that real value is added at each stage of the project and to reduce the clients overall cost of acquisition.

Whilst Altium Designer represents the future business direction, Corintech both recognises and is committed to supporting its longstanding clients with CADSTAR and VuTrax. Hence the legacy CAD systems will be maintained for the modification of earlier designs and for those customers who still currently prefer that format.

The Yes Tech YTV B3D has already proven to be fast and easy to set up with excellent defect coverage. It can inspect circuit boards of up to 508 x 457mm at a rate of over 200,000 components per hour even down to 01005 sized parts.

Following commissioning, Sean Wigmore, Operations Director, said “I am amazed and delighted with just how quickly the AOI was up and running. It is already highlighting areas for improvement that many of our clients will benefit from”. In addition to the AOI, Corintech also invested in two additional ‘dongles’ that will allow repair work and programming to be undertaken simultaneously.

This re-investment has further enhanced Corintech’s leading edge SMT lines combining excellent technical capabilities with greater flexibility and efficiency in fast job changeovers. Ideal for the fast turnaround of batches of densely packed circuits the UK facility specialises in.

When Corintech underwent Lean Office training as part of a Government match-funded manufacturing efficiency programme, it identified that its existing ERP system was a limiting factor and would hold the Company back from its goal of continuous improvement.

Corintech’s ERP system was well-proven and very reliable but it lacked many of the features one comes to expect of modern software, such as e-mail connectivity, plain paper printing and easy data export to MS Excel for analysis. Already, to wring the maximum advantage from the system, Corintech was using the open database version of the product and had defined a suite of custom reports in MS Access. However, a meeting with the system’s provider revealed that the product was no longer being actively developed and the things on Corintech’s wish list could only be provided with a series of complicated work-rounds.

So, the hunt began for a replacement system. But far from wanting to just find a drop-in replacement with some added functionality, Corintech used this opportunity to rethink its business processes. Operations Director, Sean Wigmore explained, “We had grown used to doing things a certain way because that was the way our old system worked. When we began looking at new ERP systems we questioned every aspect of how the ‘back office’ function worked. Our aim was to vastly reduce the number of process stages in between receiving a customer’s order and beginning to add value. Many sacred cows were slaughtered in the process.”

After short-listing four ERP softwares, Corintech chose 123mrp by Rent-IT systems of Southampton. This ERP software offered Corintech all the functionality it needed but more importantly, it is a product under continual, active development. “I liked their approach”, remarked Corintech MD, Mike Barton. “They rely on the product to sell itself, having no field sales force at all. Rent-IT Systems also have a very open style – we were encouraged to undergo the full product training free of charge with no commitment to buy.” By fortunate coincidence, Corintech and Rent-IT systems are both in Hampshire, so attending workshops and training was made very easy.

The decision to go with 123mrp was made in August 2007 and the first product training was started the following month. By the end of October an ERP implementation team had been formed, the software installed with a test database and over half of the staff had undergone formal product training.  By Christmas 2007 everything was in place ready for the data transfer and all training was completed. At a very memorable ERP meeting, the decision was taken to go live with 123mrp on January 1st. It had been a considerable challenge to get everything ready for this date, from a standing start four months earlier but the team decided that the opportunity to transfer the data over the Christmas and New Year holiday period was too good to waste. In addition, it gave Corintech the opportunity to change systems at the end of one financial year and the beginning of the next. For those three months the eight ERP team members burned the midnight oil, combining carrying out their normal duties with their additional system implementation workload.

Christmas Day and New Year’s Day were ruled as sacrosanct but the team was in en masse on Boxing Day and worked continually, verifying and uploading data into the new system. “It was a fantastic team effort”, recalls Barton, “and one which made me very proud.”

When the company opened its doors for business on January 2nd, it did so with not only new business software in place but with completely re-engineered business processes. The first few weeks were taken very cautiously and any problems were carefully noted and investigated. In-house training proliferated during that period and as more and more staff became fully trained, so access rights were extended until by the end of Q1, the ERP implementation team was disbanded – a job well done!

Dean James, Sales and Marketing Director, has the final word: “Most of our customers were blissfully unaware of the changes happening behind the scenes – just as it should be. I can say in all honesty that we did not drop the ball once – not one customer was adversely affected by the implementation. But looking forward, I can confidently say that Corintech has the most streamlined business processes in the industry.”