How Future AM transforms customers’ concepts into highly engineered prototypes 

Future Advanced Manufacture (Future AM) is a company built to support the world’s best engineers and designers, transforming their ideas from concepts and designs into prototypes that can be rapidly scaled. Working with Tier 1 suppliers across the commercial aerospace, defense, medical, oil and gas, space, nuclear, and marine industries, the company strives to work on projects that include technically challenging projects that push the boundaries of modern manufacturing. 

Ashok D’Sa, Future AM’s Managing Director, joins us to discuss what makes the company truly unique. “Future AM has been operating for more than 40 years, and we primarily support OEMs in the product development cycle by turning concepts into quality prototypes,” Ashok opens. “The business has grown to an annual turnover of around £10 million and we have two main divisions: research and development (R&D) and production. 

“On the R&D side, we support clients’ new product development by identifying the best manufacturing methods in terms of speed and cost, while maintaining high quality. The production division, on the other hand, is where we do what we call repeat part production, manufacturing components and assemblies for critical applications. Our revenue is fairly evenly distributed across both streams, and most of our products are for general industrial applications in the commercial aerospace, defense, and oil and gas sectors. 

“One of our niches is the design and manufacture of wind tunnel models, which are used for the testing and design of new aircraft and helicopters,” he adds. “In 2022, Future AM developed a scale model of a helicopter for a European Aerospace company. We delivered a fully integrated model to the Wind Tunnel operator and supported our customer in the testing phase. We have recently received an enquiry from the same customer about a similar project, and there are very few companies in the world capable of producing high-quality wind tunnel models.” 

Having achieved 50 percent growth since 2021, we ask Ashok to reflect on such impressive growth. “It’s partly internal and partly external,” he says. “External factors, particularly the rebound we experienced from the Covid-19 pandemic, created huge demand in the sectors in which we work, especially commercial aerospace. Internally, we’ve implemented the best possible strategy and invested in the right places to support this growth moving forward. 

“We’ve invested in new capacity, including large 5 axis machining, to enhance our capabilities and ensure we remain versatile. The machines enable us to deliver complex projects, as they not only operate on different axes, but machine much faster. 

“We’re also investing in our employees as we grow,” Ashok adds. “We embrace on-the-job training and encourage our longer-term staff to spend time training younger members of the team to pass on their knowledge and expertise. We’ve also recently invested in new computer-aided manufacturing software, hyperMILL, which will further enhance and streamline our employees’ day-to-day tasks.” 

Turning to collaboration, Ashok explains the company’s approach to meeting specific customer requirements, even in the most demanding situations. “We approach problem solving as project-by-project collaboration with our customers and OEMs,” he states. “Take a company like Airbus, for instance, where we’ve provided several wind tunnel models over the last 30 years or so. When a long-term client like this comes up with an optimistic or futuristic design, we will review it and suggest tweaks that would enhance the manufacturability of a concept until we get a finished product both parties are happy with. 

“We’re currently working with a company in the defense industry to produce casing for a motor that goes underwater. This has very different requirements that we had to consider in terms of the design. Not only must the casing be waterproof, but the client wants a compact, lightweight solution that doesn’t compromise other design features. This project is a joint collaboration to continuously tweak the design until we create the perfect motor casing for its specific underwater applications.” 

With such innovation and collaboration at its core, Future AM is sure to continue delivering high-quality products for customers’ specific applications. To close our conversation, Ashok shares the company’s current trajectory, as well as what’s next. “The first few months of 2025 have been fairly slow for a couple of reasons, both around political uncertainty,” he shares. “Our UK customers are hesitant following the change in government, but our US customers are also facing uncertainty around tariff levels introduced by the new administration. However, we’re seeing increased defense spending among our UK and European clients, and many of these projects have quite aggressive deadlines. We’re continuing to experience increased activity in the aerospace market too, but with the investments we’ve made in recent years, we’re confident that we can grow in line with demand. 

“Our pipeline generally looks good for the remainder of 2025, and we have ambitious growth plans to double in terms of volume over the next five years,” Ashok concludes. “By then, we hope to be the leading advanced manufacturing company in the UK and with the investments we’ve made over recent years, we’re on track to be the UK’s go-to company for all advanced manufacturing needs. We’re not a high-volume, low-cost provider, but instead a medium volume, high-capability shop with a passion for pushing the boundaries of manufacturing.”  

https://futuream.com