FIA 2012: JJ Churchill joins the Sonora AeroEngine Cluster
From L-R: Carlos Guzman general director PRO Mexico, Mr Churchill, Luis Felipe Seldner III, Offshore Group CEO, Moisés Gómez Reyna, Mexico's secretary of economy, Andrew Churchill, MD JJ Churchill.
ADS member JJ Churchill, a company founded in 1937, is a major supplier to ‘blue-chip’ OEMs such as Rolls-Royce, BAE Systems, Cummins, Perkins, Siemens and Alstom. Earlier last month, the company announced an investment of £6 million for a new facility in Sonora, Mexico for the manufacturing of compressor aerofoils.
According to Andrew Churchill, the managing director of the company, this investment represents a significant step in the company plan to solidify its status as a “preferred supplier” with its main OEM customers. The Sonoran factory will allow JJ Churchill to increase its competitiveness on high volume components. With the addition of this new Mexican facility, JJ Churchill will now be strongly present in all the three stages of the product production lifecycle: from new product introduction, through volume production and after-market demand.
Sonora was chosen after a careful review of several other low-cost countries and other Mexican States, added Churchill. “The fact that JJ Churchill could find most of the required special processes and services essential to the manufacturing of its products within a radius of 8 miles has played a significant role in the decision of the company to establish in Guaymas. There is no other cluster with such level of integration.”
“The investment of JJ Churchill is additional confirmation of our strategic drive towards attracting gas-turbine components manufacturing” said Mexico's secretary of economy Moisés Gómez Reyna. He added: “JJ Churchill grows the capabilities of our cluster that now covers investment casting, precision machining, brazing, heat treating and coating, and that also benefit from the presence of an International Procurement Office of Rolls-Royce.”
Signing Ceremony in Mexico City. From L-R:
Luis Felipe Seldner III (Offshore Group CEO), Jeff Prileson (Offshore Group, executive vice president and chief financial officer), Luis Felipe Seldner (Offshore Group president), Lord Green (UK Minister of State for trade & investment), Andrew Churchill (JJ Churchill Ltd. managing director), Judith MacGregor (British Ambassador to Mexico).
