Boost for UK fibre production

Fibercore has completed the commissioning of its new fibre production facility at its Southampton home.

Fibercore has completed the commissioning of its new fibre production facility at its Southampton home.

Having moved into the new facility at the start of the year, the company retained much of its fibre production at its existing Southampton Opto-Electronics Research Centre-based facility until it could fully qualify the fibre produced on its new lathes and towers.

This ensured it could maintain supply for existing customers, while ensuring fibres at the new facility were indistinguishable from those it was already supplying.

Fibercore's new research, development and production facility has taken a total of 3 years to plan and construct and has been funded entirely from retained earnings.

This emphasises its unique position as a company with no debt and a strong forward order book.

When operating at full capacity the new facility will enable the company to increase its capacity by a factor of ten.

This would take output to around 3500km of speciality optical fibre every month based on current designs, with the potential to double this through process improvement - providing significant headspace above current shipments of around 350km per month.

Having built a reputation for delivering the highest quality fibres, supported by leading edge research capabilities and industry leading customer service, the company has maintained fibre production throughout the transition process.

Despite the current depression in the telecomms industry, Fibercore currently ships around 350km of fibre every month - more than at any time in its 21 year history.

This is a result of the company's single-minded focus on speciality fibre and its established reputation in the defence, fundamental research, aerospace, sensing and fibre-gyro marketplaces.

Fibercore's broad customer base has meant that the company has reported just a 30% fall in sales revenue since the height of the market in 2000, in a climate where 75-90% is an accepted norm.

The new facility will enable it to continue to meet existing demand while future-proofing capacity for the return of telecomms and continued growth in its existing strongholds.

Dr Chris Emslie, Fibercore's Managing Director says: "I am delighted that our state-of-the-art production facility has been successfully commissioned and is now producing 100% of our speciality optical fibres.

It was vital to ensure that the fibres produced on the new lathes meet our strict quality control standards to make our fibre identical to the products we have been supplying to customers over the last two decades".

"Fibercore has been at the forefront of photonics for the last 21 years and the commissioning of our new research, development and production facility will ensure we remain there.

Our new home will not only enable us to continue to meet customers' current demands, but also safeguards our pioneering fibre development work while equipping us to meet the future demands of a rejuvenated telecomms market".

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