New Technology and Polymer Centre!

Whale® has just opened a second factory which doubles the company’s size. The new building will house their specialized product analysis, climate testing facility, design and software development and polymer moulding centre.

Whale has just opened the doors on its new second factory located only 5 minutes from its current Headquarters in Bangor, Northern Ireland. This new building doubles Whale’s operations and engineering facility and ensures the company infrastructure can keep pace with the business growth.

The additional space created allows expansion of the company’s already sophisticated testing laboratory to expand to include a full scale cold test chamber, thermal imaging technology, upgraded wind testing chamber, software development and polymer analysis. Whale’s own injection moulding capability is core to Whale’s commitment to Quality. With the expansion, the new factory enables this core competency to expand further in line with the increasing demand. This investment in additional premises and technologies is one of the most significant in the company’s long (200 year) history signalling a long term commitment to the industry, UK manufacturing and its employees.

Patrick Roberts commented: ‘This new Technology and Polymer centre is all about delivering excellence. This expansion allows is to continue to deliver even more truly innovative, high quality, stand out products. From concept stage to production – the Whale team control the entire process and apply the highest standards. Our equipment includes a cold chamber, thermal imaging and wind testing technology all specified in line with grade 3 classification and BSI standards. This state of the art laboratory will not only assist us in bringing innovation products to market faster, but is also available for our customers as a products / vehicles testing service. We are excited to be able to use this new equipment and to offer the use of our climate testing equipment. We are delighted to be able to offer these technical services as well as award winning products to the industry ’

Whale’s bespoke cold chamber (9mx 4.5mx 4m), thermal imaging and wind testing facility ensure that we develop heating products to withstand extreme weather conditions in accordance with BS grade 3 classification of thermal insulation and heating. Typical installation and field testing also give us hands on experience of their performance.

During the last 12 months, Whale has also invested heavily in the latest Rapid Prototyping Machines. The company’s trained rapid prototype engineers take an initial CAD model to produce prototyped parts at speed. The machines produce accurate, functionally compliant and highly finished components in a wide spectrum of materials and can create models combining both plastic and rubber parts. This accelerates research and design processes bringing conceptions to market quicker than ever before.

Whale’s creative designs are perfected using our rapid prototyping centre, moulded in house to ensure integrity, and fully tested for long term reliability. Engineering Director, Stanley McFarland added:-

‘Opening the new facility enables us to increase the speed of our new product development process, as well as extending our product testing capability. This brand new laboratory manned by our excellent team further enhance our ability to go from strength to strength, and as our business continues to grow, we will continue investment in research and design focussing on technological advancements. We have an excellent technical team at Whale. Key members include those with more than 40 years of experience in product development alongside those more recently qualified with the latest software and 3D modelling expertise. W2 gives us state of the art equipment to deliver fully tested new products faster than ever.’