BSCDA E-NEWS

Advanced Industrial Engineering Ltd is a mechanical systems designer, facility integrator and supplier of manufactured goods and engineering services.

The company’s main clients are within the aerospace and automotive industries working in mechanical and manufacturing engineering working from design conception through to manufacture, delivery and installation.

The company’s evolution has been swift. Within two and a half years, Philip Silver has grown his business from one man working from his home into a company that employs 12 full-time staff and is due to move into bigger premises near Ashby de la Zouch in Leistershire.

“We’re a young company but we are doing well,” says Silver. “I used to work at Jaguar Land Rover and I used to help design and buy all the big machinery that went into the car factories.

“It was a huge project but I thought I could do that type of work myself.”

Silver set up the company in 2015 and worked on it for a year while still a full-time contractor at Land Rover. Then from December 2016, he concentrated full-time on his new company.

From a business he set up and worked on from home, AIE has expanded to employ 12 staff and two contractors with the space of a year.

“I started it from home and then got a unit in April 2017,” Silver says. “We had one office and a workshop in Ashby de la Zouch and then outgrew that and then took on two more industrial units. We have since then outgrown all of those and we are moving into an all-under-one-roof new development in April in the town.”

“We will have a design office, a project management office, plus a workshop with machining, assembly, welding, fabrication and testing all under one roof.”

AIE is a tier-one supplier into Jaguar Land Rover, Aston Martin and BMW.

To be an official supplier direct to Jaguar Land Rover requires a stringent selection process. A company needs to have a specific amount of turnover, have to meet certain quality standards and justify they are needed by Land Rover.

“We’re quite proud that we have got our tier one supply into Land Rover,” says Silver. “It has taken similar companies about three years to do and we did it in about 15 months.”

AIE design assembly fixtures. “If you can imagine down an assembly line there are lots of nuts and bolts that need to be done up and a lot of those are high torque fixings,” says Silver. “Quite often the tools are electronic and they’re very heavy. They are not ergonomic for operators, so we have designed our own range of zero-gravity tool-holding arms.

“So all the operator does is position his zero-g arm on to the bolt and presses the button. That is all the interaction they have.

“More often than not, they are bespoke for the application. It is decent business for us at the moment and that has all gone into the likes of Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin.”

AIE also design handling aids for the assembly line. An aid, for example, will pick a gearbox and position it on an assembly fixture. The company design the interface between the hoist hook and the gearbox, so it grabs the gearbox and picks it up. For every car part, AIE have designed a bespoke handling aid for, including for engines, gearboxes and sub-frames.

Silver is now 32, and it was through F1 stock car racing he became interested in mechanical engineering as a child.

“It was though stock cars, without a doubt,” Silver says. “Coventry was our regular meeting every month throughout my childhood. My first meeting was in about 1996. I was a John Lund fan, through and through.

“I used to look at the cars, and figure out how they were made and built and then pestered my dad for a Ministox, which never happened!

“I was buying cars, taken them apart and scrapping them in my parent’s garage and learning how they go together and the mechanics behind them. It gave me my love for mechanical engineering.”

Silver went to Huddersfield University and studied motorsport engineering. “It was all because of stock cars,” he says. “I was still watching stock cars with my brother and my dad and friends. My brother had a Rebel while I was at uni so I help maintain and look after that for about three years. I had a few goes in it.”

After leaving university Silver work as a contract engineer at Rolls Royce before moving to Jaguar Land Rover where he designed the factories and the machines that went in them.

Silver’s first involvement with BriSCA F1 sponsorship came last year with Nigel Green. He arranged a sponsorship deal which meant he was able to get the company name on Green’s car – the day before the World Final at Ipswich.

“Nigel was clearly doing very well and he was local to us – only about half an hour away – and we thought it would be quite nice to get our company logo on a car and put a bit back into the sport,” he says.

“So we arranged a sponsorship deal with Nigel to fund some of his parts. I thought he was going to win it without a doubt, so I wanted our logo on his car when he won it.”

Advanced Industrial Engineering Ltd will be sponsoring at least one of the BriSCA F1 World Championship qualifying rounds this season and will be presenting the winning trophies on the day of their chosen event. As part of their package, Advanced Industrial Engineering Ltd will be included in the race title for the main event, with their branding on each F1 stock car. Their logo will also be included in BSCDA literature. 

We hope Advanced Industrial Engineering Ltd enjoys its first season as a BSCDA sponsor. It is good to have them on board.

BSCDA SPONSORSHIP – read how you can gain more exposure for your company through our portfolio CLICK HERE.