Operational Capabilities
At the core of the Ceres Power product development process is expertise the company has established in 'Design for Manufacture' which addresses key risks up-front. This involves concurrent design, product engineering and manufacturing activities across the entire supply chain of raw materials, components and process equipment. This approach ensures that the product design is well suited for volume manufacture and reduces the product development lead time and costs.
Engagement with supply chain partners at an early stage of the process ensures that development lead time to get product to market is minimised. Through continued investment in product engineering, manufacturing operations and the development of supply chain partnerships, Ceres has established the necessary capabilities to create cost-effective products for a range of market applications.
Ceres Power manufactures in-house the high value core fuel cell technology and is partnering with well-established gas appliance manufacturers for combined heat and power (CHP) boiler assembly in accordance with Ceres' overall product design. Key balance of plant components and sub-assemblies are co-developed and/or sourced in partnership with a global supply chain.
Supply Chain
Ceres Power has established a global supply chain of leading manufacturing companies for raw materials, components and process equipment. Ceres Power has worked with CHP assembly partner Daalderop to ensure that the CHP boiler assembly is designed for volume manufacture with components being pre-assembled into five key sub-assemblies.
Daalderop is manufacturing CHP boiler aassemblies in its volume plant based in Tiel in the Netherlands.
Manufacturing Operations
In 2009 Ceres Power commenced operation at our Horsham Manufacturing facility, manufacturing fuel cells on the initial production line and assembling fuel cell stacks into Fuel Cell Modules. The current initial line has suffcient capacity to manufacture fuel cells and assemble Fuel Cell Modules to meet the requirements of the Beta and Gamma phases through to initial sales. A combination of on-going process improvements and manufacturing optimisation to improve quality, together with aditional investment, will enable scale up beyond initial sales.
Assembly and testing processes for volume production of complete CHP products are also being developed with supply chain partners. Scale-up of manufacturing processes is an important de-risking activity prior to investment in a plant for volume production, and paves the way for rapid technology transfer and effective plant utilisation.
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