A racing certainty

Mike Richardson meets AMI-CON’s managing director, Paul Palmer to learn more about the company’s plans to open a new trackside facility at the Silverstone racing circuit.

As the old saying goes, if the mountain won't come to Mohammed then Mohammed must go to the mountain. AMI-CON has decided to take a similar path to the old prophet’s journey by opening a facility at the Technology Park on the Silverstone Race Circuit to stock and support the supply of prepregs and film adhesives to the Formula 1 teams in the motorsport valley.

As a leading supplier in composite and structural engineering materials, AMI-CON has built successful technical partnerships with many renowned global manufacturers such as 3M, Henkel, Huntsman and most recently Saati’s composites division.

From the Silverstone trackside, AMI-CON will offer its motorsport customers a counter sale service, so that anyone using the circuit that has a material issue trackside can shop directly and buy a variety of composite processing materials that enables them to perform some repair or create a component.

The Silverstone hub will hold stocks of prepreg materials, dry fibre, resin systems, paste and film adhesives, intensifiers and other general processing materials, chemicals for cleaning and etching, even down to scalpel blades, abrasives, tapes and shears from its new counter service, or for delivery as a single source package for all composite materials.

It also plans to commission a cutting machine that cuts and kits material for customers that are in a full or semi-production environment. To meet the fast-paced demands of F1, AMI-CON anticipates it will need to offer the fastest response times to teams in the motorsport valley.

“The F1 teams’ response times are demand driven,” begins AMI-CON’s managing director, Paul Palmer. “Our prepreg materials not only need to be stored and transported correctly at the right temperature and in the right conditions, but also need to meet road transport regulations. This can often increase delivery lead-time. Setting up a bespoke facility trackside will give us the opportunity for high response requirement customers to come and collect their parts if they wish, or for us to respond by couriering the parts directly to them. We anticipate our average response time being between 20-30 minutes, and outside of this - and if required, we will offer a ‘same day’ delivery for stock material with our own transport.

“The reason we are locating to Silverstone is because the response time of a supplier is key to the F1 teams, but we are also going to be putting in direct line feeds to a couple of companies that are producing high-end automotive ‘productionised’ parts that are being produced locally too. There are also other customers in different market sectors that would benefit from having material cut and supplied as a kit. In some cases it has been suggested that they will decommission their own cutting machines on the back of this service. Once we’d received their feedback that the site would be very well received, it was a no-brainer.”

AMI-CON will hold stock of the full portfolio of materials at both its Dartford and Silverstone sites but the cutting and kitting of ‘dry’ materials (prepregs, dry fabric and film adhesives) will be done at Silverstone and the decanting of ‘wet’ materials (paste adhesive and resins, etc) will be conducted at Dartford.

“There will be a ‘dry area’ at the Silverstone facility to supply the consumable materials that complement the range of composites, enabling a single source of all composite-related materials. We’ll provide a delivery service that will loop throughout the motorsport valley - probably twice weekly - and we’ll alert the F1 teams that this is going to happen so that they can take advantage of regular deliveries. Anything outside of this and we will have the capability to respond quickly.”

Palmer says the Silverstone facility will be about three times the size of AMI-CON’s present Dartford unit. Part of the Silverstone site will be transformed into a cleanroom for a flatbed cutting machine that Palmer is hoping to have commissioned in the New Year. Another unit will house the company’s laboratory and workshop.

“We apply the ‘grips’ for F1 and touring car steering wheels with bespoke compounds at our Dartford facility, but this process will eventually move to Silverstone. We’ll also have a small lab for testing these compounds for very short ‘productionised’ gripping runs.”

Palmer states that the reason for commissioning a new flatbed cutting machine is to support the provision of kits of parts directly to customers. And when the F1 teams - or their third parties - hit seasonal capacity, they’ll be able to hire the facility.

“We have non-disclosure agreements with most of the F1 team and there will be a member of staff onsite to assist if they need to nest and set the machines up to run - particularly if they are not used to operating the specific cutting machine we commission.”

I guess experience dictates that you never know what to expect from a Formula One team. So I ask if Palmer is ready to ‘expect the unexpected’ in terms of satisfying the more unusual requirements?

“I’ve worked in the F1 industry for over 15 years and their typical requirement for a response is ‘yesterday’. F1 teams are at the cutting edge of technology and design; they are like a constantly-running R&D programme. Historically we have created almost all our systems and processes around the demands set by F1 and then hopefully exceed the demands for all the other customers. We are ready for the unexpected and we believe we have got the right support from the supply chain. We have built a robust and responsive supply chain and relationship with Saati.

“We know that having a dedicated facility in the right location is absolutely key. From the outset, the partnership we’d struck with Saati demanded a dedicated facility located right in the centre of where the customer base is in order to provide the right materials at the right cost, and most importantly, at the right time. I think we are in good shape to deal with the F1 teams’ demands. We will certainly be stepping up a gear and supplying from a bigger premises that will be better suited and located for their demands.”

www.ami-con.co.uk