Oxford Instruments expansion strengthens company offering

A major expansion and improvement programme at Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology is delivering key benefits to customers. Investment in a number of key areas of the business has resulted in faster and more streamlined manufacturing, superior research facilities and more comprehensive customer support.

“Our workforce has grown by over 30% in the past 12 months enabling us to react quickly to our significantly increased order book, and to provide faster product and process development for our customers”, comments Andy Matthews, MD of Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology, “As a leader in high technology equipment manufacture, we have responded to the demands of our industry to ensure we are as competitive as possible, and to retain our reputation for producing world class products and creating long term relationships with our customers based on trust and respect.”

The company has incorporated parallel build and test bays in Manufacturing for production of its etch, deposition and growth equipment, offering more flexibility to respond to customer requirements, and reducing manufacturing lead times. This has resulted in more efficient manufacturing processes for repeat products, in supplying equipment for instance to the fast growing HBLED production market. These extensive changes have increased our production capacity by approx 50%.

New R&D and applications laboratories have been built with expanded capabilities, and the Company has appointed a number of additional Process Engineers. The applications laboratories house the company’s range of etch, deposition and growth equipment, including PlasmaPro, FlexAL ALD and Nanofab nanoscale growth tools manufactured at the Bristol, UK facility, where customer samples are run, and new processes developed.

Dedicated engineering and software development suites, and a specialist training department have also been created in order to maximise the company’s capacity to deliver quality tools and support to its customers. 

“This major investment in both staff and facilities supports our ability to meet the needs of our diverse customer base”, says Dan Ayres, General Manager at Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology, “alongside our global team and supply base we’re able to continually improve our quality and delivery performance whilst innovating our product and process offering.”