ANCA Manufacturing Solutions: Growing with the Kingdom’s Industrial Landscape
ANCA Manufacturing Solutions (AMS) is leveraging 50 years of innovation to expand into renewables, electric vehicle charging, energy storage and more.
Posted: June 24, 2024
As the ANCA Group celebrates its 50th anniversary, ANCA Manufacturing Solutions (AMS), part of the global ANCA Group is celebrating a new era of its own, opening its fourth and fifth factories in Thailand in a major period of growth.
AMS rebranded from ANCA Sheet Metal Solutions last year, as part of its expansion and repositioning from contract metal fabrication to a broad range of manufacturing offerings.
Originally specializing in sheet metal for CNC machine canopies, the Southeast Asian contract manufacturing expert has evolved significantly. Today, it offers a diverse array of electromechanical services, supply chain solutions, and more, leveraging the extensive expertise available within the ANCA Group.
Nicholas Doyle, the General Manager of AMS, highlights the company’s vertical integration and unique capabilities, which enable them to provide specialized solutions such as complete mechatronic assemblies—incorporating printed circuit boards and enclosures. AMS also simplifies supply chain requirements for its customers by managing local suppliers in their native language. “For our customers we are providing a total assembly solution, sourcing components from reputable suppliers across Asia, providing storage and global distribution of finished goods, and taking the complications and headaches away from the customer so they can focus on the tasks they do best, normally creative product design and marketing, leaving us to do what we do best, everything else.” added Nicholas.
Nicholas points out that AMS’s location in the Rayong province of Thailand—often called “The Detroit of The East”—is a major asset. The area is bustling with top automotive companies like Ford, Mazda, and BMW, along with their supply chain networks. This location not only helps with efficient logistics and supply management but also provides access to a pool of skilled workers, essential for maintaining high standards in manufacturing.
Nicholas credits the Thai Board of Investment for attracting world-class manufacturing businesses to Thailand and focusing on enhancing the skills of the Thai workforce. He notes that while Vietnam for example may offer lower labour costs, however skilled labour, better infrastructure and a mature supply chain makes Thailand more appealing.
As AMS moves into new markets and climbs further up the value chain, it now serves customers in sectors such as agriculture, mining, off-road accessories, and electrical cabinets, while tackling projects in renewables, electric vehicles, and utility-scale battery energy storage systems. Leveraging 50 years of vertical integration, AMS is poised to meet the demanding contract manufacturing sector head on.
“The capabilities across ANCA have been crafted over half a century of control system expertise for some of the most accurate and demanding CNC application systems in the world. This gives us an arsenal of tools that are not available to many other contract manufacturing companies globally. From PCB design, manufacture, testing, firmware, and software teams, we are uniquely placed to support a variety of customers. This, combined with our core competency in sheet metal solutions, creates a very powerful and compelling offering for our partners,” adds Nicholas.
Founded as Tinfish to supply canopies to ANCA CNC Machines, the company moved into aftermarket 4WD sector and other products, realizing their capability they rebranded as ANCA Sheet Metal Solutions in 2018, and adopted its current name last year.
The ANCA Group is headquartered in Bayswater North, in the Australian state of Victoria and celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Founded by Pat McCluskey and Pat Boland – who are still co-Managing Directors – in 1974, ANCA has contributed numerous world firsts to the tool and cutter grinder industry and sold over 10,000 five-axis CNC machines to the world.
AMS, which has grown to 230 employees across its five Thailand sites, and is now tapping into the universe of capability built up around the pioneering machine tool builder. It sees a promising future offered by growth industries such as agriculture, food and beverage, medical technology, and renewables.
“The demand for food supply is predicted to grow 70 percent by 2050. Food production is still very manual in Thailand and elsewhere in Asia, although it is starting to evolve, and we see great opportunities to help meet this demand,” says Nicholas.
Sustainability is increasingly recognized as a crucial issue by governments worldwide, and it is also a core focus at ANCA Manufacturing Solutions. The company is committed to enhancing sustainability across various aspects of its operations. After successfully reducing its consumption of electricity by half in the past three years, AMS is now focusing on including its direct supply chain in these improvements as well as partnering with customers in this sector to advance the world to a cleaner, greener, more sustainable, and hopeful future.
AMS is actively expanding partnerships within the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) sector. Notably, AMS is involved in producing battery boxes for electric vehicles (EVs) and constructing charging stations and grid storage batteries. Thanks to the Thai Board of Investment’s targeted support for this sector, AMS is equipped to assemble complete battery systems locally. These initiatives are pivotal to continued robust growth and sustainability in the future.
ANCA Manufacturing Solutions (AMS)
ANCA Manufacturing Solutions (AMS), formerly known as ANCA Sheet Metal Solutions (Thailand), is a leading provider of manufacturing solutions. With an expanded focus beyond sheet metal, AMS offers a comprehensive range of services including product and process design, fabrication, mechanical assembly, with electronic integration, wiring looms, and component sourcing. Serving diverse industries such as agriculture, mining, 4×4 off-road accessories, renewables and EVs, electrical cabinets, and enclosures. AMS is dedicated to delivering innovative, high-quality solutions to meet customer requirements across the world. AMS is an Australian owned and operated manufacturing business with 20 years of experience in delivering quality solutions. AMS is part of the ANCA Group which was established in 1974 in Melbourne, where its global headquarters remains.
