A Welsh electronics firm is getting the green light in the fiercely competitive Contract Electronics Manufacturing (CEM) market after adopting a leading excellence model designed to make European businesses more globally competitive.

Newbridge-based manufacturer Axiom Manufacturing Services, which employs 200 people at its 100,000 sq ft purpose-built facility, adopted the performance improvement methodology known as the EFQM Business Excellence Model four years ago to help drive its transformation from Japanese-owned audiovisual equipment manufacturer Aiwa into one of the leading mid-size CEMs in the UK today.

Since then the company has increased its turnover fourfold to nearly £18m, and notched up a number of prestige contracts in the defence, medical, industrial, security and high-end consumer sectors despite a contraction in global manufacturing.

Attributing the company's success to its drive for continuous innovation, quality and improvement, managing director Shaun Ashmead believes the company has learnt a lot from its previous Japanese parent company, and is keen to share this experience with businesses facing a similar challenge at the EFQM forum taking place in Cardiff on October 3-5, 2005.

He said: "As a global manufacturer of own-brand audiovisual products the culture was very much one of 'something can always be done better, faster and more efficiently while improving effectiveness'. By combining this discipline with a desire for uncompromising quality, reliability, flexibility and customer service excellence, re-aligning our policy and strategy with the new- look organisation's people and processes seemed a natural next step. "This has led to us achieving a number of firsts over the past few years, from being the first company to attain the prestigious BSI accreditation to IPC standards for lead-free manufacture, to emerging as the Champion of Champions in the annual UK Green Apple environmental Awards."