With a company name like The Di-Spark Group, it’s not too difficult to make an educated guess at where this particular Horndean, Hampshire-based subcontractor’s sphere of expertise lies. But whilst a heavy focus on EDM certainly was the case 30 years ago when the company began, today Di-Spark is an all round precision subcontractor offering a range of services including 5-axis milling and multi-axis turning.
When Di-Spark was founded in 1980 by current managing director David Light’s father Bob, the manufacturing world was a totally different place. Di-Spark actually evolved from a toolmaking company heavily involved in the manufacture of press tools for the printed circuit board industry but when Bob attended an exhibition in the mid-1970s and came across a Fanuc wire erosion machine, this proved to be a game changer.
“Today, EDM is an established technology and still used extensively where intricate features need to be machined – often to tight tolerances and with excellent surface finishes,” David Light explains. “In those days however, EDM was still in its infancy but my father instantly recognised its potential for a toolmaking company. He actually bought two machines and they contributed significantly to the formation of Di-Spark as a dedicated EDM specialist – serving the local toolmaking community which thrived in this area in those days.”
It’s somewhat difficult to think of EDM as a rapid process but 30 years ago in a world where the manufacture of highly complex parts often involved significant levels of manual labour it was actually something of a revelation. “We evolved into a specialist EDM subcontractor,” Mr Light reveals, “and our investments into dedicated wire erosion and spark erosion equipment meant that we could remove much of the expensive manual labour aspect from the process. It proved to be very successful – the first 10 years of Di-Spark’s existence focused almost entirely on EDM.”
In 1997, Bob Light retired and David took over at the helm. Although keen to make his mark, he recognised that the basic foundations at the very heart of the company would need to be maintained. “My father was very old school,” he says. “He built Di-Spark around an ethos of taking real pride in your work, putting quality first and investing regularly in new equipment and technology. He had clear aspirations to make Di-Spark a well run, world class manufacturing company, and although we’ve expanded the company significantly over the years, these basic principles are as relevant today as they were then.”
Getting the entire workforce to ‘buy in’ to these philosophies is a challenge to any company but Mr Light is a firm believer in running a tight ship in terms of quality systems. “We’re not the sort of company that simply chases after just any business,” he divulges. “We have a number of loyal customers in some pretty high tech industries so their expectations from a quality standpoint are very high.
“Moreover, I firmly believe that it’s important not only to have approved quality systems but also to integrate their principles into the day to day running of the company. Any business can buy good quality machines but this is only part of the equation – other elements like finance, training and staff development are just as important.”
Not surprisingly therefore are Di-Spark’s ISO9001 and AS9100 registrations and its participation in the Investors in People programme, Taking things a stage further, the company is also an SC21 signatory demonstrating its commitment to the aerospace and defence supply chains.
