(Renishaw: Gloucestershire, UK) -- Mike Sullivan founded Future Advanced Manufacture Ltd. (Future AM) 30 years ago and realized immediately that competing on price was not the way forward. “There’s always a ‘Fred in the shed’ down the road who will offer to do any job cheaper,” he says. “From the beginning, we decided we had to position ourselves so ‘Fred’ couldn’t compete with us.”

Sullivan’s solution was to focus on engineering work with specific attributes: high intellectual property (IP) values, safety-critical applications, and highly complex designs. “Put those three together, and a buyer can’t simply opt for the cheapest provider because the company is putting its reputation on the line—and possibly the lives of its customers,” says Sullivan.

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