Corbetts, one of the UK’s oldest hot dip galvanisers, has recorded its highest ever volume from a single facility in July, with more than £1m of new orders secured since returning from lockdown.
Corbetts the Galvanizers, which celebrates 160 years in business in 2020, has seen a 48% rise in volumes from the fencing sector, with work also won in utilities, infrastructure and transport.
The Shropshire business is processing all this demand in just one plant after taking the decision to temporarily close its other facility until early 2021 .
The decision looks to be paying divideds, with average output at an all-time high. In June, the company announced 17% more output than average performance, rising a further 7% in July. The increase has reportedly be driven mainly investing in operational efficiencies and a bespoke loading system.
Finance Director and General Manager, Sophie Williams commented: “We are bouncing back from what has been a very difficult period and volatile sales thanks to the impact of Covid-19.”
She continued: “Our workforce has been outstanding, embracing the changes we had to make and throwing themselves into the best practice training we have been rolling out. This means we now only have two people left on furlough.
“Volumes and demand still remain fairly sporadic, but we are seeing a general push from the majority of our customers to get production capacities back up to 100% sooner rather than later.”
Corbetts the Galvanizers recently made appointments to boost its leadership function, with Simon Prest and Mark Stephenson joining as Sales and Marketing Manager and Procurement Manager respectively, while Mick Probert has been promoted to take care of Operations.
The new look team has started to oversee a range of performance and efficiency improvements at the Telford site and rolling-out a new customer-centric approach that aims to increase turnaround times and deliver greater flexibility.
It comes just a few weeks after it completed the £120,000 modernisation of its fleet of vehicles, with the purchase of two additional MAN TGX articulated lorries and trailers.
Sophie concluded: “The next big project will focus on implementing a new yard layout and goods in/out procedure to speed up the link between production and to ensure we can better manage delivery cycles to customers.
“This will feed into the introduction of a new ERP system on September 1, which will link all of the departments together and deliver improved visibility on order tracking and processing. All part of the plan to help us emerge from Covid-19 in an excellent position to win new business.”
