About us

We’re a young, innovative company which was officially founded in Autumn 2017 by Steve Barbour.

The lightbulb moment

Our story really began around 2015, when Steve had his lightbulb moment. Having gained 19 years of commercial experience at Rolls-Royce and a further 10+ years managing composite manufacturing businesses, Steve was a capable businessman with an eye for opportunities. He foresaw that as pressure to reduce carbon emissions in the automotive industry increased, so too would the demand for affordable lightweight components.

However, the composite manufacturing industry wasn’t set up for producing high volume, low cost parts because of the labour-intensive processes involved. But what if those processes could be automated, thought Steve? This is how the idea for Composite Braiding was born.

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Scaling up

We are now a small but growing team who have won global awards for our work. We’ve combined proven, existing technologies in a new way to create a unique offer in the composite manufacturing market.

We employ and develop skilled people who deeply care about and understand what we do. This makes our jobs more interesting and improves our efficiency and productivity.

Managing Director
Steve Barbour

I spent 19 years at Rolls-Royce, including as Customer Business Director and Head of Marketing, before entering the world of composites in 2004. I’ve turned around a number of failing composite businesses and overseen projects for the automotive and aerospace sectors, including wing spar tooling for the Airbus A350 and structural parts for the McLaren Mercedes supercar. I’ve also led companies towards accreditation, including the AS9100 aerospace and TS16949 automotive standards.

I had the initial idea for Composite Braiding Ltd in 2015 and am proud to have created something of value from nothing.

Who we are

A word about quality

The next stage of our journey is quality accreditation. We are currently working towards ISO9001 and IATF 16949. To help us achieve these accreditations, it's important that we have a clear Quality Policy Statement. Here it is:

“Our aim is that the name Composite Braiding Ltd is synonymous with ‘Quality’ in the minds of our customers. All team members, at all levels of the business are responsible for the quality of their work and the collective output of the whole team. We are all empowered to identify opportunities for improvement across the business and to collaborate in their implementation.”

Award-winning

Our technology has been recognised as world-leading. Working with a consortium of other manufacturing companies, we won two global innovation awards for the design of a very light rail carriage:

Get in Touch

Address
Composite Braiding Ltd, Dunstall Park Rd, Allenton, Derby DE24 8HJ, UK