About United Works
A manufacturing group built by investment, not by intermediation.
United Works establishes, invests in and acquires factories, then runs them under one engineering discipline. What follows is what those factories make, where they sit and where the group is putting its capital next.
What the group is
United Works establishes new factories, takes controlling stakes in existing ones and acquires plants outright. Whichever route brought a site into the group, it is run afterwards on the same terms: our own quality manager, our own engineering standards and our own documentation pack.
Production spans sixteen industries. On the equipment side that means packaging and agricultural machinery, industrial components, electric motors, textile machine parts and vehicle parts. On the materials side it means electrical insulation, packaging materials, metal products, graphite and composites, and titanium from ingot through to finished pressure equipment. Optoelectronics covers emitters, detectors, optics and imaging modules, and feeds the lighting business alongside it. The bio-based plants ferment amino acids, lactic acid and PLA from corn milled on site. Office consumables and furniture complete the range.
Sites are specialised rather than shared. An optical cleanroom next to a press shop wastes money in both directions, so each factory does one kind of work and is equipped properly for it, while the engineering discipline is what travels between them.
Where the capital is going
Three areas are taking most of the investment. Optoelectronics is the largest: epitaxy and packaging capacity is being added for laser diodes and imaging sensors as fibre, LiDAR and machine vision demand grows faster than we can currently serve it.
The bio-based plants are the second. Downstream capacity for lactic acid and PLA is being expanded ahead of the amino acid trains, because compostable polymer demand is rising with packaging regulation and we already control the sugar those polymers start from.
The third is electrification. Higher efficiency classes in motors and the insulation systems they depend on are being developed together rather than separately, which is unusual and is the reason we can move a frame from one class to the next without waiting on a supplier.
Beyond those, we add a line when a customer programme justifies commissioning the equipment for it. That has been the pattern behind most of the sixteen industries here, and it is a better test of where to spend than a market forecast.
How the group is run
- We contract on conformity, not effort
- Dimensional and material liability sits with us, which is why we turn down work our own lines cannot verify.
- No consumer brand, ever
- We do not sell finished goods under our own name, so we never compete with the customers whose drawings we hold.
- Every part costed in two countries
- A programme that cannot move is a programme with a hostage in it, and the hostage is usually the customer.
- Bad news travels first
- A missed date reported early is a scheduling problem. Reported late, it is a line stoppage, and those are expensive at both ends.
What we are not
We are not a marketplace, a broker or a low-cost bidder. If your part is a commodity bought on price alone, a trading company will beat us and we will say so on the first call rather than waste a quarter of your time.
Footprint
Where the work is done, and why it is there.
Factories are not interchangeable. Each site does one kind of work and is equipped for it properly, which is why a programme is quoted from a named location rather than from a group average.
| Location | What runs there | Transit to port |
|---|---|---|
| Vietnam — Hai Phong, Bac Ninh, Binh Duong | Optical sub-assembly, insulation converting, motors, luminaire assembly, furniture, moulding | 3–5 days |
| Malaysia — Penang, Johor | Epitaxy, optical generation and coating, cleanroom assembly, insulation | 2–4 days |
| Thailand — Rayong | Agricultural and packaging machinery, LED luminaires and drivers, office consumables | 3–5 days |
| China — Suzhou, Ningbo, Dongguan | Corn milling, fermentation and downstream processing, machining and tool room, insulation coating and lamination, graphite, titanium | 2–4 days |
| Mexico — Monterrey, Querétaro | Heavy stamping, welded assemblies, vehicle parts and machining for North American programmes | 1–3 days to border |
Who you deal with
Roles, not job titles.
A handful of our people touch a programme. You will know all of them by name, and any of them can stop a shipment without asking commercial for permission.
- Process engineer
- Owns the drawing tree, the tolerance budget and the machining or process route. Your first point of contact from enquiry to end of life, and the person who sets the machine.
- Factory quality manager
- Signs the first-off, runs the statistical review and holds the authority to reject a lot. Reports to group quality rather than to the factory manager, so a shipping deadline cannot overrule a measurement.
- Supply planner
- Manages the forecast, the safety stock and the call-off schedule, and raises a shortage risk before it becomes a shortage.
- Trade compliance officer
- Owns origin determination, substance declarations and the evidence file that has to survive a customs audit years later.
Responsibility
Conditions inside the buildings we are asking you to trust.
A supplier who cannot show you their labour and effluent records is asking you to carry a risk they have not priced. Ours are open on the same terms as our dimensional records.
Labour
Four-pillar SMETA audits at every producing site. Working hours, wages and freedom of association are documented and open to your review.
Effluent and emissions
Closed-loop water treatment at every chemical, plating and fermentation site, with discharge tested monthly by an accredited external laboratory.
Energy and by-products
Site metering feeds the carbon data we supply to customers. Fermentation mycelium and corn fibre leave as fertiliser and feed, not as waste liquor.
Anti-corruption
No facilitation payments, no gifts to buyers, and a reporting channel that bypasses local plant management. A breach ends an employment or a contract.
Buyers and engineers
Send a drawing or a specification with an annual quantity. You get a feasibility note, the line it would run on and an indicative delivered cost within a working week.
Consult an ExpertCome and look
The most useful thing a new customer can do is walk the factory during a live run. We will arrange it, prepare the certificate set in advance and let you pick the shift.
Book a factory audit