ARRK Gloucester’s General Manager, Rupert Sleightholme, gives his view on the year so far
“It’s been an exciting first half of the year for our AM team, who have been busy helping clients from across a range of sectors with their manufacturing requirements. From initial concept, display models for an upcoming trade show, through to tooling for volume injection moulding production runs, the team have found solutions for our clients needs.
ARRK is always driven by its customers’ needs. It’s one of the reasons why we’ve been in the industry for so long. As early pioneers of SLA and SLS in the 90’s, we’ve seen the industry grow to what it is today and what customers need from companies like ARRK. There are lots of fantastic AM technologies and services available today and we’re delighted we can offer many of them, but more importantly we have found over recent years, it’s materials that are driving us and the industry forward. Customers are looking for an increasing range of materials with specific characteristics and properties. It’s one of the primary reasons why our people have paid particular attention to our range of materials. We continue to offer tried and trusted materials for some of our traditional technologies and we are now, particularly since the turn of the year, delighted to have widened our selection of DLP resins.”
“Offering a variety of resins from industry’s leading brands, like Loctite, Formlabs and ForwardAM, we have a portfolio of resins with characteristics such as biocompatibility, heat or chemical resistance, flame retardant and ceramic filled. With over 14 materials available to choose from we’re confident we can help you.
More recently, we’ve invested in HP’s latest MJF offering, the 5620 machine, at our Gloucester manufacturing site. We have been offering an MJF service for some time, and this installation provides us with additional flexibility and capability and sits nicely alongside our other AM services, such as SLA, SLS, DLP, and CFF.
As we mentioned earlier, ARRK has been in the industry for a long time and supported thousands of customers with their manufacturing needs. We firmly believe that it is our vast range of services that appeal to our customers as a single source solution provider. Combined with the customer support and technical know-how we can provide, we believe this winning combination is highly valued by clients.”
Look out for us at….
The second half of 2026 looks set to be just as busy as we will be attending several exhibitions and networking events. This includes:
- SDO Associates, Uncrewed Systems Network – Technology event on 4th September in Swindon
- Medical Technology Ireland Show, where you can find us on stand 300 between 23rd-24th September at Galway Racecourse. This hugely popular medical show attracts engineers, designers and buyers from the local medical community and beyond, and we are excited to be attending once again.
- Advanced Engineering Show at NEC, Birmingham – 4th & 5th November 2026. We will be exhibiting with members from our composite and engineering business in Nuneaton. If you are attending the show, why not drop by and say hello and hear for yourself what’s been happening at ARRK and see how we may help you with your next manufacturing programme.
- Make UK Defence Summit runs from the 18th – 19th November at British Motorcycle Museum, Warwick
We hope the rest of the year is busy and productive for you and should you find that you need our support, please don’t hesitate to contact us.