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THE ROCKWOOD GROUP

Stand: Y150
_Aerospace
_Defence & Security
_Energy
Composites Engineering
Innovation & Sustainability Trail
https://www.therockwoodgroup.co.uk

About us

The Rockwood Group comprises of Rockwood Composites and its Industry Specific Subsidiaries, Rockwood Aerospace, Rockwood Defence, Rockwood Cryogenics, and our low cost manufacturing site in Morocco, known as Rockwood SARL.

The Group specializes in manufacturing solutions for complex composite components. Utilizing highly accurate aluminium tooling The Rockwood Group can deliver component complexities unachievable with traditional processing techniques.

Rockwood Composites, head company at The Rockwood Group, supplies a diverse array of precision, high-performance structures to a wide range of markets, including Nuclear, Medical, Automotive, Marine, Industrial, Leisure, and more. With our subsidiaries delivering product into the specialised areas of Aerospace, Defence and Cryogenics.

We provide bespoke manufacturing solutions by promoting “Design for Manufacture,” aimed at minimizing tooling costs, maximizing quality, and reducing component costs and lead time to market.

With in-house tool design, tool-making, 5-axis CNC machining, and assembly capabilities, Rockwood supplies finished products to meet customers’ individual needs, all manufactured within an EN9100:2018 quality management system.

Products

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In House Facilities

The Rockwood Group excels in providing specialist knowledge, capabilities, and skills in technically demanding sectors. We leverage a broad range of engineering tools to deliver robust manufacturing solutions, such as carbon fiber manufacturing. Our greatest asset is our experienced staff, who bring decades of expertise in materials, design, development, and serial manufacturing. This expertise is complemented by state-of-the-art tools, equipment, and infrastructure. We utilize SolidWorks and Catia CAD systems to design and analyse components and tooling with precision. The transition from CAD to tooling and subsequent physical components is seamless, thanks to HyperMill, which generates cutter paths for our 3, 4, and simultaneous 5-axis machining centres. This ensures a complete in-house tooling and component machining capability. For composite manufacturing, we employ specialized equipment, including multiple -18°C cold storage units for material stock and two parallel ply cutters for precision-cut pre-preg materials. Our composite processing optimizes pressure, temperature, and vacuum conditions to handle the full range of pre-preg resin systems, including carbon fiber manufacturing. Throughout production, processing conditions are meticulously logged and recorded as part of our quality assurance measures, supported by the latest laser scanning metrology

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Engineering and Design for Manufacture

At Rockwood, we design and manufacture our own metal tooling to incorporate process optimization from the outset. We collaborate closely with our customers to ensure their parts are designed to optimize manufacturability, increase quality and maintain or even add functionality into the components. Our bladder and compression moulding processes result in high-quality components with a high fibre volume fraction and minimal voids. Wherever possible, we incorporate CNC machining features to eliminate handwork and trimming, ensuring that good quality tooling leads to superior quality and cost-effective parts in our composite manufacturing. Our composite manufacturing tooling can be designed to be configurable, meaning a single tool can feature interchangeable inserts to enable the production of various similar parts. We offer a selection of tooling materials, including aluminium, invar, and steel tooling to work in our heated platen presses. Stand-alone tooling can be built specifically to customer requirements and can incorporate integral heating and cooling systems, bladder and compression moulding within the same tool, multi-zone heating, and fully automatic cure control. These tools are fully autonomous, allowing for fast component turnaround without the need to move them in and out of heated presses.

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Compression Moulding

Composite compression moulding produces cored and/or monolithic components in a one-shot moulding process. This method of manufacture uses aluminium tooling and heated platen presses, the pre-preg, foam cores, metallic inserts and integrated hardware is co-cured in a single shot process, thus eliminating the need for secondary bonding procedures in a lot of instances. Components with undercut and side features can all be moulded using tooling with modular tooling inserts and side actions. The resultant parts have a moulded face on all surfaces and edges. Composite compression moulding can also utilise a moulded core, in comparison to foam cores machined from a block, they reduce waste, speed up processing and are most often a more cost-effective approach to foam cored structures. The benefits of compression moulding in aluminium tooling is the ability to use modular tooling – this is when you can mould a number of similar components from a single mould tool with the use of removeable and interchangeable inserts that change certain aspects of the part. A further key benefit is the ability to combine compression moulding and bladder moulding into a single tool, allowing for component complexities that only this process can achieve.

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Bladder Moulding

Bladder moulding is a technique where a custom-made inflated silicone pressure bag or a solid silicone intensifier provides the consolidation pressure within a fully enclosed tooling system, this process uses aluminium tooling, which is placed into a heated platen press for the curing cycle. This method is faster than autoclave processing due to the ability to heat tools more quickly and demould at elevated temperatures. Bladder mould tooling produces hollow or single-sided parts, similar to an autoclave. However, it allows for undercuts and intricate details due to the high pressures involved and the ability to use removable inserts in the aluminium tooling. One side/ the outer surface of the component will have a tooled ‘A’ surface, while the other, or internal surface, will be the ‘B’ or bag surface. Bladder moulding is not limited to monolithic components; foam cores can be used to add stiffness to specific or larger areas and composite hardpoints can be co cured in position. One of the overarching benefits to using aluminium tooling and heated press curing is that bladder moulding, and compression moulding can be combined in hybrid tools offering the precision and surface complexity of compression moulding along with the tooling simplicity of using a pressure bag.

News

Job ads

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ERP Lead/ Production Control Support

The ERP Lead / Production Control Support will manage, optimise, and improve our ERP system to keep operations efficient and production running smoothly. You’ll collaborate with Manufacturing, Operations, and Engineering to align schedules, reduce downtime, and ensure on-time delivery. Key responsibilities: ERP administration, data accuracy, and system performance. Analyse data, resolve technical issues, and implement enhancements. Train users, maintain documentation, and liaise with ERP vendors. Support production schedules, purchase/work orders, and proactively address bottlenecks. What you’ll bring: Experience in process improvement, systems, manufacturing, engineering, or supply chain. ERP knowledge (Progress Plus a bonus). Excel skills, strong analysis, communication, and problem-solving. Attention to detail, organisation, and ability to thrive in fast-paced environments. 📍 Full-time, on-site | 🎁 Benefits: Extra leave + parking

CADCAM Programmer / CNC Miller Programmer Setter Operator

Rockwood Composites (Paignton) is hiring an experienced CNC Miller Programmer Setter Operator due to growing demand in Aerospace, Medical, Defence, and Cryogenics. Join a skilled team producing both production and one-off parts (tooling, fixturing). You’ll program, set, and operate 3/4/5-axis CNC machines, using controls or CADCAM software. Must read engineering drawings, work to tight tolerances, and inspect own work. CADCAM experience is essential. 40 hrs/week, Mon–Fri. Salary package negotiable on experience, 31 days holiday, overtime and progression offered. If you are interested in this position please get in touch!