Altus Group has formed a partnership with SEHO Systems, expanding its UK and Ireland electronics manufacturing portfolio with wave soldering, selective soldering, robotic soldering, automation technology, and through hole inspection systems.
The Redditch-based capital equipment distributor will provide local sales, applications support, and after-sales engineering for SEHO’s soldering systems. The agreement gives UK and Irish electronics manufacturers regional access to German-built soldering platforms used across both high mix production and more automated volume assembly.
SEHO manufactures selective soldering machines, wave soldering systems, integrated inspection technology, and automation equipment for electronics assembly. Its systems are used in production environments where soldering repeatability, traceability, and uptime have a direct effect on product reliability.
By adding SEHO, Altus now covers a wider range of soldering technologies, including convection reflow, vapour phase, vacuum soldering, selective soldering, robotic soldering, wave soldering, and laser soldering. The company has also invested in technical training, with after-sales engineers and sales staff completing product and process work at SEHO’s facilities in Germany.
A demonstration system is due to arrive at Altus’ Redditch headquarters, giving manufacturers access to practical evaluation and process development support before committing to full production investment. That capability is important because soldering equipment rarely succeeds through machine specification alone; process performance depends on board design, component mix, flux chemistry, thermal behaviour, fixturing, operator practice, and inspection strategy.
Through hole assembly remains central to industrial electronics, power systems, aerospace, defence, automotive, and other high reliability sectors. Although surface mount assembly has absorbed much of the automation investment over recent decades, through hole processes still support components that need mechanical strength, current handling, heat tolerance, or long service life. Those same attributes can make the process more difficult to automate cleanly.
Manual soldering and legacy wave systems can become bottlenecks when product complexity rises or skilled labour becomes harder to recruit. Process variation, rework, and documentation gaps also become more expensive when customers demand tighter quality records. Selective and robotic soldering can reduce dependence on manual steps while preserving the flexibility needed for mixed technology assemblies.
Electronics manufacturing investment across Europe is increasingly focused on the whole production chain rather than component availability alone. Advanced system-in-package capacity in France has strengthened the industrial base for European chip packaging, while a separate Nantes qualification programme has added Class Y space electronics manufacturing capability. Board assembly, soldering, inspection, and test capacity sit further downstream, but they determine whether those components can be turned into reliable products at scale.
Local support will carry weight in that environment. A soldering line that is poorly configured, slow to service, or unsupported during product changeovers can undermine the gains promised by automation. Manufacturers need process expertise close enough to support commissioning, troubleshooting, operator training, and continuous improvement.
The Altus and SEHO partnership gives SEHO a stronger route into the UK and Irish market and gives Altus a broader technical position across electronics assembly. More importantly, it addresses a process area where labour pressure, quality demands, and product complexity are converging. Automated soldering is becoming part of electronics manufacturing resilience, not simply an equipment upgrade.
