The
Birmingham-based company's services include section bending, tube bending,
plate rolling, submerged arc welding, press braking and tee splitting as well
as profiling and shearing.
Commercial
director Greg North says that demand for its services is down on last year but
work on several large construction projects will help it to achieve a turnover
in line with expectation.
"We
have been doing quite a lot of work on various venues for the Olympics,"
North said. "There has been a lot of opportunity there so that has been
quite good for us. Schools and colleges and hospitals have been the main area
of growth on the structural side."
Surviving
numerous tough markets over the past four decades can be hard, but not if you have
the right approach and attitude to the market. "This year we are
40-yearsold and the business has changed so much over that time that we look at
ourselves as innovators rather than followers," North said. "We have
innovated differently and allowed certain structures to grow, certainly with
the innovations that we have developed.
"So
we tend to look for new markets rather than let them find us. That has been our
real success story."
Barnshaw's
growth has been impressive since 1969 but North and his team do not
underestimate the problems that the current climate the company is operating in
can bring.
"Of
course it is tough now and everyone has to batten down the hatches and look
after the costs. You have got to do that in business anyway. We are certainly a
company that if we see a need for anything that needs investing we will do
that."
One
particular area that Barnshaws has invested heavily in recently to help fight
its way through the recession has been in new machines and technologies. During
the past year it has not only focused on updating its equipment but to also
provide the business with more capacity.
"We
are always looking for extra capacity," North said. "We are finding
that, especially in structures, everything is getting bigger and larger. This new
facility that we have got has boosted our capacity."
One
reason for this is that there was a time when engineering companies told
architects what their limitations were, but now it is the other way around.
"We
used to tell them what we can do but now if they can draw it then we have got
to look at trying to bend it somehow. That is what we have done, invested in
bending bigger, larger, tighter sections than ever before. So it gives the
architect a little more licence."
This
investment in machinery has been funded by the company alongside a grant from
Advantage West Midlands. "They are a big supporter of Midlands
manufacturing and have given us substantial levels of support."
Barnshaws
has sites spread throughout the UK with branches in the West Midlands,
Manchester and Hamilton. Each site has different bending facilities to meet the
needs of its local markets.
The
company has around 150 staff with 80 based in the West Midlands at its branches
in Oldbury and Coseley.
The
technology that Barnshaws uses for bending is the most advanced of its kind in
the world. Its capacity in each of its specialist services covers the whole
range from very small sections and thin plate up to huge sections 1000mm in
size and plates up to 100mm thick. Its production system is modern and
efficient so that small orders for two rings can run along side large multi
million-pound call off orders.
Barnshaw
meets all current environmental legislation and holds the ISO 9001 - 2000
standard. Almost all waste is re-cycled and absolutely no hazardous materials
are used in its processes, which are continuously reviewed at board level.
Its
objectives are set to continuously improve lead times, efficiency and
reliability. Its current quality achievement is 99.6 percent accurate, a rate
that far exceeds other suppliers of curved steel in the UK.
As
North and his fellow directors look to the future they will be following the
same path that the company has taken for the past forty years by looking to
develop its methods of bending to help industry in general.
"When
we first started the company a lot of business we had was for heating and
ventilating, pressure vessels and general engineering," North said.
"Those sorts of things are still made in the UK, but at a far reduced
level. Imports have increased from companies with lower manufacturing costs.
"So
we needed to look at what our market is in this country and with structures
being difficult to import that is where we have concentrated our efforts. Not
forgetting manufacturing, of course you can't. We are investing in new machines
and key technology on that score."
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