IMC: Cool Running

Manufacturing in Action, Source : The Manufacturer Zone : Skills and productivity

IMC has seen growth of 12 per cent since deciding to consolidate its manufacturing at a new site in Wrexham. Tim Tindle spoke to Ruari McCallion

You know the skills shortage is hitting home when the response to an advert for a well-paid job can just about be counted on the fingers of a closed fist. “We placed an ad for a TIG welder for three weeks in the Watford newspaper and, in all that time, we had two replies,” said IMC managing director Tim Tindle. Three-and-a-half years ago, when that advert was placed, IMC’s main factory was in Croxley Green, between Watford and Rickmansworth. It also had a sales operation and small warehouse in Germany, and a fabrication facility in Shotton, north Wales. The recruitment difficulty crystallised a problem that was looming large and close. Experience and skills in the existing payroll wasn’t a problem: the future was.



“When we analysed our workforce at Croxley Green, we discovered that half of our people were going to retire within five to 10 years,” said Tindle. IMC had to do something simply to ensure it survived. “We considered relocating production to China or subcontracting to Poland but we concluded that approach wouldn’t work for us. Sixty per cent of what we make is sold in the UK and we offer a lot of variants: we needed to stay here. The south east has higher costs and a skills shortage but Mike Magee, our operations manager in Shotton, had a broader age spread in his plant and the skills base we needed was readily available in the area.”



North-east Wales and the north-west of England has auto, aerospace and other engineering clusters, with everything from large OEMs, like Jaguar/Land-Rover, Vauxhall and Airbus, right down to small job-shops. IMC isn’t involved in aerospace – its principle business is supplying under bar servery and storage systems and back bar refrigeration to bars and restaurants together with vegetable preparation and waste disposal equipment to professional catering operations.



IMC’s equipment can be found in the local pub and on the Queen Mary II; in Conran restaurants and the Ritz Hotel, Paris; in fish and chip shops, high street bars and in the refurbished Ascot racecourse. It’s business was founded on automatic potato peelers and silver burnishers in the early part of the century, and it was IMC that in the 1950s introduced waste disposers to British and European markets, years before anyone else, and brought stainless steel bar systems to the European market in the 1980s.



In late 2004, IMC decided to move its production operations and consolidate, with head office and support functions, on a single site in Wrexham, less than 20 miles from Shotton. It was a significant decision. “Throughout the process, the most important thing was not to let the customer down – and by and large we didn’t. In fact, we grew the business by six per cent in the year we were planning and beginning to execute the move, and are expecting a further five per cent growth this year. We’re very proud of that.” Relocating to a factory that is, if not absolutely purpose-built, then certainly suitable for IMC’s purpose, was a chance to implement improvements to systems and processes – but there’s risk, too.



“There’s a danger with a major relocation that you destroy the ethos, culture and paradigm of the organisation, especially when consolidating three operations into one new site.
We didn’t want to lose that – we wanted to reinvent it,” he said. “After ensuring that we retained our customers, our second-year priority is to improve operations. We put our production engineering team on a lean manufacturing course with the Manufacturing Institute. We are a high value added manufacturer carrying out many more processes under one roof than a lot of companies, which gives us the possibility to offer customer-focused differentiation, but makes the lean journey we are embarking on all the more challenging. We’ve also made substantial investments in machinery and tooling, which has helped us in our hunt for improved efficiency and effectiveness.”



IMC’s turnover is around £9 million; the move cost around £4.5 million, including buying, refurbishing and extending the new Wrexham plant as well as redundancy, recruitment and relocation costs – only 12 of the Croxley Green staff relocated.



Around £500,000 was invested in five machines, including a Citizen twin-head machining centre with four-axis live tooling, which has replaced one person and two machines, requiring multiple operations to achieve the same result that new equipment achieves with one set up. There’s a new Yamazaki Mazak 350MY three-axis horizontal lathe, again with live tooling. A new Turbex paint preparation unit has saved time, effluent and manpower.



“The first thing to remember is that we have solved the recruitment problem we experienced when we were in the south east. Secondly, our costs are lower, through lower overheads, more competitive wages, and our local suppliers also enjoy these competitive advantages which delivers savings on bought in components. We’re delighted with the local staff we’ve hired – our people here have strong skills and are turning into an excellent team. They want to make IMC a success,” said Tindle. “The move has been great for us and has set up the business for a bright future.