Europlacer Full-Line Install Delivers Increased Productivity for Cursey Technology

Fresh investment with a new full production line from Europlacer for UK-based Cursey Technology helps drive growth for this contract manufacturer.

Cursey Technology has customers in several challenging electronics sectors that demand exceptional manufacturing precision and quality. Looking to improve productivity, the new management team assessed the market’s surface-mount assembly solutions and chose Europlacer to assist with its expansion and investment plans.

Until that point, the company had been running two legacy surface mount lines. What the firm needed was a solution that would increase efficiency and output. Europlacer was able to deliver a single surface mount line with the ability to exceed the productivity of Cursey’s current operations.

Europlacer became the favored candidate after equipment demonstrations, site visits and benchmark comparison tests. The initial incentive to evaluate Europlacer’s equipment came via a recommendation from an existing Europlacer customer. 

Within weeks, the CEM was operating productively at five to six times the combined run rate of the two legacy lines, with just a single operator on the new Europlacer line.

“It was a massive learning curve for us,” says Paul Barnett, Managing Director of Cursey Technology. “The speed of the line is immense in comparison to our old lines. We have one board in particular where assembling 500 units would take several days, and sometimes a whole week. Now we run a batch of 500 of those boards in a few hours! It’s excellent news for the company.”

Production Manager Dan Weaver explained the benefit to the shop floor. “For me, it’s now far easier to manage the company’s production. We’ve doubled our job run rate and reduced the assembly time by between 50% and 75%,” he says. “So we are now able to work some three weeks further ahead than before and can plan in the tougher jobs with ease.”

The underlying objective for the Cursey Technology investment was to create greater flexibility for its existing customers and expand the range of work that the company can handle for those customers, while also providing the business with the capacity to take on more projects and complex designs that the previous lines couldn’t support.

“We succeeded in hitting that goal,” says Paul Barnett. “So yes, we’re talking to our existing customers and proposing assembly projects to prospects in industries including medical, aerospace, solar energy and EV technology.” 

Paul Barnett believes that the productivity of the new Europlacer SMT line puts Cursey Technology in a solid position to move forward with greater business opportunities.