Back from the brink

4 April 2002



Warwick Dryers has been re-established as a UK manufacturer selling to the UK market. Glenn Tomkins spoke to the company's managing director Chris Brockbank to find out how it was done


In many ways the story of Warwick Dryers epitomises that of the UK's manufacturing industry. As everyone in this business is aware, service industries have become the dominant employers. While many bemoan the decline of manufacturing in general, Warwick Dryers's tale highlights how survival for the relatively few manufacturing companies still producing goods was often more due to good fortune than anything else.

The good news is that the company is back making dryers. The even better news is the new management has weeded out the old ways and has a serious commercial proposition to make to anyone looking to acquire a new dryer.

Solid foundation

The company was started in the heyday of UK manufacturing as an offshoot of the diverse Birmingham-based company Edward Williams Holdings. It owed its foundation to the almost inevitable success of its parent company. Warwick Dryers was, in fact, started by EWH's Brian Williams not exactly as a hobby but to a large extent because he had a hunch it was a good idea. The procedures and checks applied to new ventures that are taken for granted by today's businessmen were not an encumbrance to getting things done back then.

Warwick Dryers started manufacturing, people liked the product and the machines gained a reputation for being as soundly engineered as anything that came out of Birmingham at that time - a fine accolade. Everything was made by hand, as engineered products were.

If there was a single criticism at the time that could be levelled against Warwick Dryers, it was a less than precise approach to delivery times. But the company's major customers did not have a problem with this, and Warwick Dryers ticked on happily.

However, while this may have been acceptable business practice 15 or 20 years ago, today it is seen as an anachronism. A management buyout in 1998 failed to turn the company around, and the company went into receivership in 2000. At this point, with an uncertain future, The Stanland Group, a laundry-based company, stepped in and acquired the Warwick Dryers business.

Chris Brockbank of The Stanland Group says: "Now Warwick Dryers is being run as a business and what's important is to give the customer satisfaction." But it's taken an investment of £300,000 up to now to reach the position at which Warwick Dryers considers it gives its customers the service they require.

Reviving the company

Essentially there were three problems at Warwick Dryers. The first was the company's building. This was poor quality and unsuitable. It was solved when the company moved to a purpose-built factory in January 2001.

The second problem way the machines were made. It is no longer acceptable to produce the dryers the way they used to be produced. The company now benefits from the efficiency of modern manufacturing procedures. For example, it buys in pre-cut steel that can be readily fabricated. Production at Warwick Dryers is now more akin to assembly than manufacture, like automotive companies.

The final problem was poor delivery times and backup. Partly because of the way the machines were manufactured and partly because of low levels of stocking, delivery of new machines was typically three weeks or longer. The Stanland Group itself stopped buying from Warwick Dryers around five years ago because of this problem.

With manufacturing at the company brought into the 21st century, the new management team at Warwick Dryers set about dealing with the stock problem. In the warehouse today, there are in excess of 150 machines in stock. Spares backup is similarly effective.

"Ninety-five per cent of customers can now have next-day delivery," says Billy Singh, Production Manager. He explains that 80% of dryers sold are 30lb models, the next 15% are 20lb, 50lb and 75lb dryers or extractors. It is these that are kept in stock. The remaining 5% of sales are for non-standard machines and are available at a three-week build time."

Sound proposition

Billy Singh says: "The dryer itself is a very sound dryer. I have every confidence in the quality of the dryer, because our parent company buys them and its customers are more than happy with them." What this also means is that if a problem is detected by them during normal use of a dryer, the company has a direct link to the manufacturer and ensures the problem is rectified quickly - an ideal form of quality control.

Chris Brockbank cited an example: "When a dryer was being moved on site it was possible to put a kink in the base, therefore causing the maintenance door to stick. We noticed this, and now the base is suitably reinforced to prevent it happening."

"The dryers are in stock, they're good machines, the backup is there," said Chris Brockbank. "It's a good product at a good price with good service." Can't say fairer than that.



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