1AVA CAD/CAM GROUP | 1

MANUFACTURING EDITION

FACTS ABOUT AVA CAD/CAM GROUP

» 34 years of groundbreaking UK based R & D and software development

» Unique international service team – over 500 man years of specialised experience

» Two thirds of sales consist of exports to all continents

» 100% proprietary technology

» 15% per annum organic growth

Nick Langford, CEO

Traditional textile design printed digitally

A small business in the UK delivers world leading proprietary software and support services. AVA CAD/CAM, based in Macclesfield, Cheshire, provides specialist software and technology services to leading designers and manufacturers of decoratively printed products – wall coverings, flooring, textiles for fashion and home decoration – all over the world. One of the earliest developers for the now widespread Apple Macintosh platform, the company has enjoyed steady (average 15% p.a.) organic growth for the past ten years and now derives around two thirds of its turnover from exports. CEO Nick Langford discusses some of the challenges ahead.

I like to think that, in our own small way, we are following in the footsteps of great British designers like Vivienne Westwood, Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen, Mary Quant and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen who have showed for decades that Britain can punch well above its weight in the world of fashion and décor.

What has made AVA successful? Above all, I think, a set of values shared among our employees and customers. We summarise these values in four words:

» Vision – the need to adopt a long-term strategy in order to internalise and profit fully from new technology

» Integrity – good business is based on trust

» Community – values shared between employees and customers

» Expertise – without professionalism and attention to detail, the rest would be almost worthless.

In my experience, such shared goals tend to lead to mutual success and prosperity.

AVA CAD/CAM Group

THE PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW

Highlighting best practice

2 | AVA CAD/CAM GROUP

The software itself is complex – the product of continual research and development and 25 years of evolutionary, customer-based innovation. We also invest a lot of time and money on R & D. In terms of lines of code our software is similar in size to the generic applications of industry monoliths such as Adobe – but we are more specialised and faster on our feet. The result is software which enables our customers to design and print sophisticated high-end products with greater ease, integration, accuracy and productivity than they obtained using generic software applications.

The pace of technological change has been accelerated by the recent

arrival of digital presses which can print complex decorative designs at production speeds. Digital print is reshaping the decorative print market – not only by drastically reducing lead times, and the consequent need for large stockholdings, but also by pushing the creative boundaries of what it is possible to print through higher definition and wider colour ranges.

The ability to print many short runs of different designs generates potential bottlenecks in the production process due to the number of possible print variables and the speed with which digital jobs need to be prepared. This is one area where specialist software, which combines accuracy with productivity, comes into its own against generic alternatives.

Another is the desire of many manufacturers to match the output of their new digital printers with that of conventional printing presses in order to combine the flexibility of the former with the lower costs of the latter – a task which is difficult but possible using complex modelling combined with the processing power of modern portable computing devices.

A third is the increasing prevalence of global supply chains – products are designed and coloured in one place and printed elsewhere. This requires a new level of accuracy in international colour communication for complex designs.

But the successful adoption of new technology is as much about people as technology. AVA’s strapline ‘Partners for all time’ reflects the fact that we see ourselves as a technology services company rather than a software provider and the process as a long term one. One of the mistakes made by our competitors is to treat the supply of software in a similar way to the sale of a car or a washing machine – on this business model, after-sales

Printed woodgrain flooring can now be incredibly detailed and realistic

Digitally-printed decorative products account for an increasing share of the total market

3AVA CAD/CAM GROUP |

MANUFACTURING EDITION

service is viewed as a necessary evil, a cost to be walked away from as soon as possible, rather than as an opportunity. The technology which AVA provides and uses is changing all the time and the pace of change is still increasing. Since technology is only ever as good as the people using it, businesses which actively promote an attitude of ‘lifelong learning’ among employees and customers tend to be successful.

As one of our aims is to provide customers all over the world with the same level of service as they would experience if we were based in their own country, AVA employees tend to be an interesting mixture of design, science and language graduates. In contrast to the past (we used to maintain two offices in North America and one in Switzerland) AVA’s industry-leading customer training and support services are now based in the UK. But, if we are to remain here while continuing to grow and export to the rest of the world we need continued access to international talent. Short-sighted nationalist isolationism will not, in my opinion, lead to peace, stability or economic prosperity in Scotland, the UK, the US or anywhere else.

25 years ago I was working for a UK-based textile multi-national. Its greatest strength was its internationalism – manufacturing in 50 countries, recruiting talented managers of many nationalities and moving them around the world. This company developed computer-based colour matching technology at its R & D facilities in Scotland which, at the time, was probably significantly better than anything else in the world and which could have revolutionised the way the global market was served – favouring smaller, lower-cost production units at the expense of established behemoths.

Somehow, however, that technology was never translated into true competitive advantage. Perhaps the national interests of senior managers running large established production centres prevailed. An opportunity was lost. I hope that the development of AVA reflects lessons drawn from those strengths and weaknesses. We are now in an era of borderless data, borderless commerce, borderless talent and borderless opportunity. I am not yet convinced that our current government really ‘gets’ this.

Technology is only as good as the people using it

“ “

AVA Customer Services is based in Macclesfield Cheshire and provides 18 hours a day service to customers around the globe