Victrex has made US $1 million investment at its AITC (Asia Innovation & Technology Centre) in Shanghai for significant expansion. 

This important financial injection will help accelerate innovation and enhance customers’ ability to turn ideas into prototype parts for testing and evaluation, speeding time to market and enhancing the design-to-mass production workflow for advanced engineering design in China and Asia generally.

Andrew Storm, General Manager China said, “Investment to support our customers with PEEK expertise to accelerate their speed to market has always been key. Since the AITC opened in Shanghai in 2006, as a 2,000-square-metre technical centre of excellence, the facility has undergone dynamic growth and development offering injection and compression moulding, thermoforming and analytical capabilities. With this current upgrade, we can now offer a 4-axis CNC machine for part prototyping, part and tool design advice and process validation, as well as supporting Additive Manufacturing capabilities, supporting innovation for process and material development for 3D printing.”

AITC will provide customers with facility for total solutions, from Material Selection to Part Prototyping, and beyond, with the capability for advice on part design and injection moulding tool design, as well as the capability for part FEA (finite element analysis) and additive manufacturing equipment. This will significantly reduce the lead time for prototype sampling while providing data-based quality inspection before sampling and concept-proof decision-making prior to committing to large investments for the customers.

“Adding this impressive array of new hardware and software will drive a major capability expansion of the AITC Application Lab, allowing it to provide technical support for customers at a very early stage in the integrated processes that take innovative product concepts and move them into mass production,” added Storm.