Final stages of factory move approach

This is because as planned all of the major pieces of plant and equipment at the new site have been purchased from new, and hence so far having only added to our machining capacity we have not had to move any significant pieces of kit.For the last 6 weeks or so we’ve been making 60% of our standard IGUs at the new site, all of our roof products and just moved in the last week or so are laminated products. For IT reasons however, we are still despatching from Tanfield so all this product is currently being shipped back down the road, before being married up with the remaining standard IGUs, decorative, shaped and express items.

As our second Bystronic IG line is installed this week however, we enter a more critical stage. This will give us the capacity, on all brand new equipment to make 100% of volume products at the Harelaw site, up to 15,000 units per week. Sometime therefore the tables need to turn where we despatch from the new site and ship the smaller volume items up the other way. Ideally this stage will be limited, a few weeks perhaps as the necessary IT infrastructure is installed tested, but at some time in the next month or so we’ll make the move completely, including the Customer Service team and all the office staff.

In the coming period whilst we have toughening facilities on both sites and are wholly confident in our ability to manufacture in volume, there are a few finer details which may be more difficult to manage. With our laminate cutting table at new site and Georgian bar manufacture at old, it may for example be more difficult to make a laminated Georgian unit in this time. Our manual assemble cell which makes smaller and decorative units will be next to move so we there is the potential for a day or two of disruption there, and really any next day product could be affected over this period.

Entirely relocating a £15m business that dispatches in excess of 3,000 bespoke products daily, ordered on a 5 day lead time and delivered nationally, was always going to be a daunting task without a lengthy shutdown. We are however about 80% through this process and once the coming weeks are dealt with Clayton Glass will be the very proud owners of a state of the art, modern and light production facility to take us and our customer base well into the next decade.

We hope you understand therefore if we do experience any service issues over the coming weeks, and we thank you in advance for your understanding and patience. Ryan, Jason and the rest of the sales and customer service teams of course remain available at all times to deal with any particular concerns should they occur.