A Black Country cable harness, wiring looms and panel assemblies specialist is targeting a 20% boost in sales after it secured a string of new contracts.

Teepee Electrical, which supports clients in the automotive, rail, ‘blue light’ and electrification sectors, is looking to take turnover past the £3m mark as more customers tap into its ability to supply low, medium and high volumes.

Following the purchase of £100,000 of automatic crimp presses, ancillary tooling and a cable cutting and process machine, the Bloxwich-based company has started supplying volume cable assemblies to a second-tier UK automotive supplier with plans in place to be involved in new vehicle platforms by spring 2022.

This complements recent wins with a major rail customer for an ongoing fleet upgrade project and the development of a wiring harness for a niche EV client.

“Sales are back to £2.5m, which is where they were before the pandemic struck,” said Steve Clarke (left), who has been managing director at Teepee Electrical since 2004.

“The really exciting news is that we’re currently witnessing our biggest pipeline of opportunities, and this could easily translate to more than £500,000 of additional business over the next 12 months.

“Just before Christmas we managed to buy the assets of FW Cables in a deal that has given us immediate access to higher volume capacity. This really rounds off the full-service offer for us, meaning we can deliver complex low and medium-volume work, along with lower complexity mass production.

“If things go as planned, I’d expect us to create three more jobs taking our total workforce to over 50 staff – our employees have been superb during the pandemic and the real heartbeat of the business.”

Teepee Electrical was originally founded by Steve’s father Peter Clarke, Mick Hodgkinson and sleeping partner Tony Ball in 1989 after they spotted an opportunity to start their own company manufacturing wiring harnesses for the bus and rail sector.

After 10 successful years supplying those industries, the company was sold to one of its largest customers Craig & Derricott. It was a move that never really worked and with offshoring resulting in a loss of contracts, Peter decided to buy the business back in 2002.

Steve joined two years later as managing director and has overseen a resurgence in the firm’s fortunes, establishing it as one of the UK’s leading providers of complete wiring solutions.

The focus now is on reinforcing its position as a strategic outsourcing partner for its customer base and maximising its in-house engineering expertise and manufacturing systems to deliver cost savings and production solutions.

Steve added: “Our agility and speed of response really help us stand out from our larger competitors and we’re putting these attributes to good use when attracting new work, especially in the emergency services sector where we provide harnesses and assemblies for ambulances and fire engines.

“I feel 2022 has the potential to be the year of reshoring for UK manufacturing, with more companies looking to bring supply home or dual-source to protect their operations from the vagaries of worldwide material shortages and increasing shipping costs.”