Copyright 1985 Guardian Newspapers Limited

March 15, 1985

LENGTH: 959 words

HEADLINE: Small Business: At the cutting edge / Focus on speciality lasers

BYLINE: By ANN HILLS

BODY:
Laser Cutting (1981) is turning over pounds 500,000 worth of business this year, making holes in metal and ceramic, In ceramic they can be cut at the rate of a quarter of a million per minute, often to a fraction of a hair's width.

The story goes back six years when Christopher Peace - the 13th generation in the family firm - specialists in steel and precision engineering - was left without a job. Samuel Peace was taken over, leaving virtually no redundancy pay.

At the age of 40, ripe for change, with a background in the Navy and seeing the world (he began in engineering in Canada and South Africa) Christopher Peace took a masters degree in business administration at Cranfield. 'This was the turning point of my career. The course, with Sir Clive Sinclair among the lecturers, was fantastic.'

This mature student qualified in the top half, though he was among a mere five per cent above 40 Financial assistance for study came from the Business Graduates Loan Scheme.

Believing that 'a good idea is far harder to come by than capital,' Christopher put out feelers during his year of study. 'Engineering and materials' processing seemed the likeliest answer, back home amid Sheffield's steel industry, though that was beginning to suffer from the recession.' His search, through letters to banks and accountants, advertisements and personal contacts, brought news of 72 possibilities - some bizarre. He rejected the firm making cylindrical hard boiled eggs to put into pies and a half-Jewish, half-Christian cemetery in quest of new ideas.

He wrote a dissertation on the acquistion of a technically based company and Industrial and Commercial Finance Company was the assessor, proving a useful contact with inside experience.

First came a false start: he joined a company making equipment for rolling of steel rods on the day the steel strike started and the technical director had a heart attack.

Next, still in Sheffield, near the family home - a renovated house by a river in the Peack District National Park - he discovered Plascut Group, stainless steel stockholders The strikes had hit hard and Christopher visited part of the firm. Laser Cutting, on the day the receiver was appointed. This was a pioneering concern with seven lasers bought in the mid 1970s and by 1980 out of date, but the customer record was good.

Seven days later, with a partner in the shape of the chairman of the company which had bought out Samuel Peace, a deal was struck Laser Cutting (1981) Ltd., was acquired for a few thousand pounds with a stock of materials for the fast growing micro electronic industry (worth several thousand pounds in themselves), the company records and good- will. The redundant lasers were sold off elsewhere.

A new laser, costing pounds 54,000 was bought from the United States and production begun 16 weeks after the take-over, and within three months the workforce - 'three of us - me, a foreman and technician' - were on shiftwork, with the machine putting in a 16-hour day. Christopher's partner had connections with a series of companies, one of which required laser cutting services - so this became a kind of 'mother ship,' a customer and supplier of backup staff to run the accounts.

All went smoothly until, two days before the one-year warranty on the laser expired, the machine burst into flames. Customers had to wait 17 weeks for production to resume - an extra four weeks because the replacement coming from California was wrecked in a motorway crash.

Today a small workforce, operators, salesman and administrator, have several lasers in operation. Most of the employees were previously unemployed because of the recession, but Sheffield was the right choice with a pool of skilled labour. 'Almost everyone receives training of one form or another and close links are maintained with the polytechnic, university and Cranfield,' says the boss.

The company is based on and industrial estate on the city outskirts, in property shared with a bearing distributor who wanted to retain a trade counter. That agreement led to a reasonably priced space, with suppliers and customers on the doorstep.

Laser Cutting's speciality is supplying ceramic components used for linking silicon chip to printed circuit board in the microelectronics industry. The ceramic is imported from Japan and, once drilled, travels the world again. Some pieces will be bases for chips in hearing aids being assembled in Sweden for the NHS, others for the Ministry of Defence's weaponry.

The are used in anything from building pace-makers to landing jumbo jets. Parts are in use in the space shuttle and will probably be in satellites within months.

Christopher Peace claims that success is partly due to Laser Cutting being prepared to take on short runs - from 1,000 to 20,000 items.

The idea is to stay small and capital intensive, cutting ceramics and special steels A 140,000 laser is on order to cut metals up to half an inch thick, with grants from the Small Industries Engineering Finance Scheme. Thus lasers in this smallish workshop will be able to work at powers of 150 watt to 1500 watt - making it the widest range in the country.

Laser Cutting was the first firm to use the new facsimile transmitting machine at Sheffield's Chamber of Commerce to secure a substantial order with detailed drawings from Scandinavia. The drawings were received on Christmas Eve and the order was started over the holidays.

Christopher Peace, a jovial enthusiast, used all the resources to hand to research the market and find a suitable company to acquire to develop a new career in the middle of the second industrial revolution - a parallel with his ancestor Samuel 13 generations ago.