Flann Microwave Celebrates 60 Year of Success

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Pioneering microwave engineering company Flann Microwave has celebrated 60 years of success by looking to the future with an investment in a new coordinate measuring machine (CMM) to further enhance the precision manufacturing and testing of its market leading waveguide and calibration technology.

Flann Microwave Celebrates 60 Year of Success - RF Cafe

Colleen Fleming, Flann Microwave Chairman, and Dr James Watts, Chief Executive, with members of the Flann Microwave team

Flann Microwave OGP CNC 300 CMM - RF Cafe

Ben Berger operating the new OGP CNC 300 CMM (coordinate measuring machine)

Flann Microwave products - RF Cafe

Flann Microwave products

With a 60-strong team based in Bodmin, Cornwall, UK, Flann has grown over six decades to secure a global reputation for innovation and the production of precision microwave and millimeter-wave passive waveguide components, sub-assemblies, calibration kits, and instrumentation to 500 GHz.

The company serves customers in the telecoms, government, automotive, aerospace, defence and research sectors, exporting more than 80 per cent of production. It has also worked with UK and overseas government agencies to write many of the standards used in the industry.

Dr James Watts, Chief Executive of Flann Microwave, said: "Sixty years is a significant milestone for Flann and a good reason to be celebrating the achievements of the company and that of the highly talented team here who have made it all possible.

"At the very heart of the business and its workforce is a spirit of innovation, commitment to engineering expertise, attention to detail and customer service. This has been the foundation for our success to date and our on-going policy of maintaining the highest standards and continuing to invest - for example in this new CMM - gives us the confidence that the company's global reputation for quality, reliability and performance will continue into the future."

Flann has already taken delivery of its new OGP CNC 300 CMM (coordinate measuring machine), which incorporates TTL (Thru The Lens) laser measurement and has a standard accuracy of +/-1.8 um in XY & +/-2.4 um in Z, although when used as a comparator Flann expects to be able to realise +/-0.15 um or better.

It will enable engineers to automatically measure a part or assembly from an inspection program which can be written in conjunction with the engineering drawing, picking faces of the 3d model of the part and applying the geometric constraints and tolerances from the drawing.

Flann design engineer Nathan Miller said: "For many years we have produced the highest quality of work in the industry and this will now demonstrate our commitment to customers to produce the very highest level of precision inspection and mechanical validation.

"It opens up a whole raft of opportunities to Flann. Defining our capabilities, fine tuning part setups, inspection reports (FAIR), ISO17025 (acting as a calibration lab), finding that problem we know is there somewhere but just can't find and time saved in complex inspection."

Flann was founded in Kingston Upon Thames, Surrey, in 1956 by engineer Bernard Fleming, who took his experience in radar and combined this with a passion for innovation and insight into the potential of waveguide technology. He relocated the business to a new purpose-built headquarters and engineering facility Bodmin in 1970 and continued to lead Flann until his death in 2002, aged 76. The company remains family-owned under the chairmanship of Bernard's wife, Colleen.

Colleen Fleming, Chairman of Flann Microwave, said: "I'm incredibly proud of the company, its values and of the people working here. Quality was the hallmark of Bernard's life and he was uncompromising in the standards he set himself, the business and its products.

"It is so important that his legacy continues and I'm delighted to say that it does, through the team of people here, many of whom have been with Flann for decades, and the values being passed on by them to the future generations of engineers who join us as apprentices."

With its roots in the development of radar during the Second World War, microwave and wave guide technology forms the backbone of the digital communications network and is a vital part of the infrastructure of modern day life.

Today digital data such as mobile phone signals, mobile internet, satellite and military communications is carried using microwaves – high frequency radio waves between 2 and 500GHz.

Flann developed the technology to precisely guide (or pipe) these microwaves between electronic equipment and transmitters / receivers – for example the dishes and antennas on mobile phone masts which link the mobile network.

Flann also worked with UK and overseas government agencies to write the standards which ensure that components and installation techniques used across networks are compatible - and its testing and calibration equipment is used by all the major telecoms equipment manufacturers.

For nearly sixty years, Flann Microwave Ltd has been a market-leading designer and manufacturer of Antennas, Precision Microwave Components and Test and Measurement products operating between frequencies of 2 to 500 GHz.

The company was founded in Kingston Upon Thames, Surrey in 1956 by Bernard Fleming and relocated in 1970 to Bodmin in the South-West of England – an area renowned for its beautiful scenery and a popular place in which to work, live and holiday.

The U.S. operation, Flann Microwave, Inc., was established in Boston in the 1980's to support the Company's sales activities in the USA.