Deritend moves gearbox work to new facility

Commenting on the move, Operations Director Alex Meiklejohn says: "The industries we serve are predominantly 24-hour operations, from power stations to water processing plants, hospitals, petrochemical sites and some of the larger food producers. It makes sense for us to concentrate our operations on the most up-to-date and modern facilities in each area. Deritend has effectively been doubling-up with the maintenance of the former RMB Engineering works, also in West Bromwich. The proposal for this older facility is that it will now be closed in line with our plans for business development and a balanced geographical coverage."

The new purpose-built facility at Brandon Way provides Deritend with 32,000sqft of efficient work space specially designed for working with gearboxes and large machines. It has already allowed the business to expand its capacity to serve industries such as power generation, mining and steel production with large gearboxes and fabrication work. The integration of the smaller gearbox business completes the changeover to the new site, based just one mile away from the original facility.

Reducing costs and improving efficiency

Richard K Hale, Deritend Group MD, adds: "There is no doubt that we would have taken longer about reducing the activity at the older site, had market conditions permitted, but the recessionary climate has meant that we have brought forward plans to ensure that we remain lean and at the forefront of maintenance engineering technology. The new facility is extremely efficient and we have been able to offer many of the staff including our engineering apprentices a move over to the new facility. We expect there to be a small number of redundancies after the full consultation period, but any impact on our overall skills base will be kept to an absolute minimum. We believe that manufacturing industry in the UK is one of the key elements to surviving the present recession, and we are committed to helping to improve competitiveness by reducing costs and improving efficiency; it also looks like government is starting to agree with us for once."

Deritend says it offers one of the most comprehensive breakdown engineering, machining and fabrication services in the UK. The expansion of services from the Brandon Way site and the support of all Deritend's existing workshops and specialist suppliers across the UK means that all existing customers can expect a fast and efficient service both during the transition period and thereafter.