- Pickering Interfaces was awarded a Queen’s Award this year for its exceptional growth in international sales.
- Its CEO Keith Moore barely mentions this award when we met in Paris. The British manager, who masters the technical subtleties of his communication systems, prefers to focus on the continuous investments made by his company in the development of new products and innovative solutions.
- With a second plant to be operational in the Czech Republic in early 2020, Pickering Interfaces is strengthening its presence in the European Union.
“We are a technology company with about 400 employees whose products are sold almost everywhere in the world. Approximately 40% of our sales are made in Europe, 40% in the United States and 20% in Asia. We are a British company whose business model is similar to that of a medium-sized German family company that is very cautious towards investors. We focus mainly on technological developments and rapid response to the specific requirements of our customers. All our profits are reinvested in the development of the company,” says Keith Moore, CEO of Pickering Interfaces.
Pickering, founded by his father in 1968 and specialized in the design and sales of relays, then diversified in 1988 by creating Pickering Interfaces, its subsidiary specialized in electronic automatic test systems, which today has a wide range of modular switching solutions. This range is growing almost daily because the company, attentive to the wishes of its customers and aware that each switching application has its own specificities, does not hesitate to develop a product that meets the exact expectations of one of its customers. This product will then join the British company’s impressive catalogue of switching solutions, which now includes more than 1600 products in PXI format and nearly 300 products in LXI format.
“When a customer requires adaptations, in terms of number of channels or frequency band for example, on a switching module from our existing range, we can design and manufacture this specific module which will then strengthen our catalogue,” says Keith Moore. We do not require the order of a large number of modules to carry out this customization. We can undertake it for only a few modules ordered.
To do this, Pickering has set up a perfectly oiled production and logistics process to produce to order and deliver its products in three to four weeks. The company controls the entire design and manufacturing cycle from the supply of relays produced by Pickering, to the manufacture of electronic boards and cabling in its plants in the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom.
Like many British manufacturers, Keith Moore does not welcome the Brexit, announced but always delayed, with a big smile. But as a ship’s captain preparing to face adversity, he had already anticipated the possible turbulence that the Brexit could cause. The construction of a second manufacturing site was launched in the Czech Republic in June 2019. Located approximately seven kilometres from its first plant, this new production entity will be operational in the first quarter of 2020. Pickering Interfaces will thus be able to produce and deliver from this country integrated into the European Union to its customers all over the world without worrying about the uncertainties associated with Brexit. The British plant will focus instead on launching new products and producing older ones. Long-term support is indeed one of Pickering Interfaces’ specificities. “Our products guaranteed three years are rarely obsolete. We still sell and support products designed in the 1980s,” says Keith Moore.
