Pioneering synthetic leather company chooses Cambs Compressors

As sustainability and ethical considerations continue to gain prominence, they drive growing popularity of non-leather materials. As you expect from an innovative city like Cambridge, it has a bioengineering technology company at the leading edge in manufacturing a synthetic leather to meet this growing market.

Compressed air is an essential component of the manufacturing process

As with almost every form of manufacturing, compressed air is at the heart of the process. The main challenge was designing a solution which could replicate the process designed in a laboratory on a manufacturing scale. The newly installed system is instrumental in several processes needed to create the synthetic leather. The project was delivered and after a few bespoke modifications, the commissioned system gave the desired results for each process using compressed air. This has enabled the business to consistently produce their synthetic leather and supply it in the quality and quantity required by their customers. The material is used by manufacturers of vegan accessories, like handbags, wallets and belts.

The value of experts outweighs the perceived financial savings of an internet purchase

As with many start-ups every penny counts, so the first place the client looked was online for a suitable compressor and the required ancillaries. The prices online helped them develop budget, but this was significantly different from the quotes received from the BCAS members approached to tender for the project. BCAS is the British Compressed Air Society, it's the UK's only trade association for compressed air engineering companies, and members are bound to the professional standards it sets. Knowing we were dealing with professionals highlighted the value of the expertise and knowledge required.

"I can really see the benefit of using a specialist to provide and support for both product and service against purchasing from the internet. I’m able to delegate the management of the maintenance and servicing, but the real value is in the problem solving. We pioneered the process in a laboratory, and now in a manufacturing environment we needed to scale the process and volume of material we can produce. We know what the end-product needed to look like and perform, however scaling the lab model wasn't as straight forward as we had imagined. This is where the benefit of working with experts pays dividends. With the support of the Cambs Compressors engineering team, the technical solutions to overcome any issues identified are quickly resolved. I’m convinced we were able to move to production more quickly and sustainably because we had experts to make the compressed air do what we needed."

Michael Cooper Materials Engineer at Hide Biotech