Manufacturing Magazine December 2022 | Page 53

SUPPLY CHAIN to manufacture five gigawatt hours of battery packs . In the process of setting up IONETIC , Eaton realised that while there was a lot he knew about battery packs and electric vehicles , he would still have to learn how to run a business .
“ There ’ s been a lot of the business side to learn , a lot of economics especially relevant at the moment ,” Eaton says . “ I ’ ve learned that you ' ve just got to be adaptable and stay open to learning all the time . One of the things I like to have a philosophy on is that I ' m always trying to learn what I don ' t know .”
New businesses come up against many challenges - from establishing a headquarters to Work From Home policies . But with LinkedIn having 57 million organisations on its platform , how does a new business choose its own name ? This was something Eaton struggled with , but using his engineering mind , he found a solution . “ I wanted to make up a word , so in true engineer fashion I sat down with Excel and wrote

“ We never want to deny service to people because they only want a hundred battery packs ”

JAMES EATON CEO AND CO-FOUNDER , IONETIC
down every battery word , then every prefix and suffix I could think of . I just came up with IONETIC !”
IONETIC are set to sell across the UK and Europe , but are they concerned about going further afield ?
“ We always want to serve niche vehicle players ,” says Eaton . “ We never want to be in a position where we ' re denying service to people because they only want a hundred battery packs because that ' s sort of part of the founding mission of the company . We never want to leave those people behind .” manufacturingdigital . com 53