Catching up on the last 12 months
12 months that we will never forget.
From tragedy to transformation, here’s what happened over the last 12 months at Redhill Manufacturing:
May 22 – Fire breaks out at Redhill Premises
Thankfully, the factory was completely empty and nobody was hurt. More than 50 Fire fighters rushed to the premises on Padgets Lane to tackle the blaze.
The building was completely unsalvageable along with the building contents.
May 22 – Redhill finds temporary facility to commence the first stage of the bounce back
Just two weeks after the fire ripped through the factory, we secured new premises and commenced the plan to get back to manufacturing. This is in no small part due to the hard work and positive attitude of our team, who achieved the near impossible.
June 22 – Redhill appoint new Sales Director, Ross Anderson
Ross assumed the position of Sales Director in mid June 2022. As Sales Director, Ross takes responsibility for customer relations with current customers, consolidating their relationship with Redhill, realising their vision to grow and delivering further opportunities that Redhill is able to offer.
With a history of sales and new product development across Europe and the UK, Ross has extensive expertise in sales and innovation and would rapidly become an asset to the team.
June 22 – Redhill forges ahead, beginning manufacture!
All our welding bays become fully operational and manufacturing of our product range starts once again.
We introduced weekend and double shifts to increase productivity and reduce lead times.
July 22 – Search for Redhill’s new home of manufacturing
Whilst the temporary facility has been great for getting things going, we needed to keep looking for more scaleable and sizeable premises in which the operation could get back to full flow.
New premises were located – literally around the corner from the temporary location. Plans were underway and soon we would be visualising the factory and office floorplans.
September 22 – Redhill exhibits at IMHX 2022
We were delighted to exhibit at IMHX, held at the NEC in Birmingham. The Redhill team were at the event all week, providing product demos, showcasing the Redhill product range and catching up with with suppliers, strategic partners and clients.
September 22 – A visit to the Nukon Plant in Turkey for Fibre Laser Cutter Demo
Directors Andy and Sam Colley flew out to Istanbul to visit Nukon’s facilities to see Redhill’s newest investment, the Nukon ECO 315 4KW.
The machine is capable of cutting sheets 1.5 x 3.0m in length, has a loading capacity of 1.5 tonnes and our 4kw version can cut a massive 20mm into mild steel.
The newly commissioned machine would arrive at Redhill a few months later.
October 22 – Sam Colley appointed as Director
As the wife of Managing Director, Andy Colley, Sam has always assumed a supporting role, with Redhill very much in her DNA. Post-fire, however, Sam has come into her own, taking a much greater active role in the company and recently being appointed a Director in June 2022.
As a Director, Sam is responsible for HR, Policies and Procedures at Redhill. This sees her maintaining relationships across the board with customers and suppliers, ensuring despatches run smoothly and on time, and providing guidance and leadership to employees.
November 2022 – Phase 1 of move to new factory
We move from our temporary premises to a brand new facility on the same industrial estate boasting 52,000 sq ft.
Providing greater capacity for incoming materials and ample storage space for products leaving the factory, our impressive new facility will enable us to increase output, clear backlog and, moving forward, significantly reduce lead times – to the benefit of our customers and distributors.
November 22 – Phase 2 of move begins with new mezzanine floor
Providing additional manufacturing space, our new mezzanine is installed in Unit 15. Work is carried out on the mezzanine system throughout November, which would be ready for use in early December.
December 22 – New facility fully operational
The vision is realised as we become operational from Redhill’s new home of manufacturing.
Our new purpose-built facility will provide us with the optimum set up for manufacturing excellence, greater capacity for incoming materials, extensive storage for assembled products, and generally a much improved environment to operate our business from.
January 23 – New Laser cutter arrives from Turkey
The new laser completes its 3400 kilometre journey and is installed with the help of Nukon’s team.
Nukon have a reputation for utilising industry-leading laser cutting technology, a perfect fit for Redhill and another leap for manufacturing excellence.
February 23 – CAD Engineer Steve joins the team
Steve joins Redhill, one of his key tasks is to learn the operation of the new Nukon ECO 315 4kW sheet fibre laser machine.
Steve brings with him a wealth of experience, having spent a collective 30 years in laser cutting, 20 years in 5-axis and tube laser cutting, 20 years of press brake tooling, 25 years in waterjet cutting and 5 years in offline robotic bend cell programming.
February 23 – Rob brings innovation and new business
Production manager Rob has a huge influence on the production process, innovation and generally the way in which all activity is coordinated to meet demand.
Rob has also brought in new business, forming relationships with clients and driving Redhill forward into the future.
February 23 – Big Steps: Production increase = lead time decrease
The Big Steps team continue to push ahead, improving efficiency at every step.
Now settled in to the new premises, with new machinery up and running and productivity at a high, we find our rhythm and manage to halve lead times.
April 23 – New phase of development
With the factory floor plan and layout close to completion, we now turn our heads to the office and admin areas of the building.
We transform the upstairs to accommodate our production and office staff, meeting room, PPE and general stores, and carry out remodelling in units 14 and 15, to create more room for welding, finished stock and a new powder coating plant for later in the year.
May 23 – The tragedy of fire 12 months ago; very much a thing of the past
The future looks bright – we have been working hard to increase output, getting the majority of products back to pre-fire lead times. We’re investing in more machinery, with new tube benders coming in July 2023, a tube laser in August 2023 and increasing our powder coating facilities in Q4. Watch this space for more exciting announcements this year.