Precision engineers lifting the gloom

06 December 2006

£2m transformation sees specialists attracting work while other firms fall by the wayside

It's three years since Chris Carter acquired Barker Collins Engineering in Sheffield in a management buy out.

And in those three years he has transformed the company from jobbing general engineers into highly specialised precision engineers. He has invested heavily in plant, machinery and staff, pouring in around £2 million to equip the business with the tools it needs to compete with the best. The company's 60,000 sq ft premises, in Hallamshire Works, Bardwell Street, in the shadow of Sheffield Ski Village, are now home to some of the latest CNC machines for a wide range of boring, milling, turning, fabrication and precise measuring.

And the investment has paid off.

Sales and marketing director John Sidebottom, said the company was likely to increase turnover from £2 million this year to £3 million next year and is confident about future growth in a sector which has continued to see closures, widespread redundancies and deeping gloom.

"Barker Collins is proving that heavy engineering in Sheffield can have a future if firms are prepared to adapt and invest.

"It's obvious from the failure of some big names in the city in recent years, that we can't just go on doing what we've always done and hope to survive. But by concentrating on high skill, high value sectors we have turned the company around and given it a bright future.''

The company is always on the look out for the best engineers, he says, and has snapped up a number of workers from companies which have gone under in the last few years such as Lodestar and Three Star Engineering.

"Whatever the reason those firms failed, it wasn't because of the guys on the shopfloor because their skills are incredible,'' he said.

"Engineering is very much in decline but one of our strengths has been the demise of others. As Sheffield's resource declines, we can cherry pick engineers and find new customers.''

Barker Collins has 40 staff and is working day and night to keep up with demand. It serves a variety of industries, including marine, nuclear, earth moving and crushing, power generation, mining, steel making, petro chemical, rail and defence. Around 50 per cent of contracts are generated locally, with clients such as William Cook Group, Baldwin and Francis of Savile Street, Cutting and Wear from Greasborough and the Chesterfield company H I Castings.

But the net is now being cast much wider and the company has successfully attracted work from all over the UK, from the north of Scotland to the south coast.
The new model for success is low volume and high quality. "Heavily specialised projects, which carry high valuee and demand high degrees of skill are the future for companies like ours. We will continue to invest the money we earn in increasing our capabilities. We've spent the money we have earned to continually improve our prospects.

"There's far greater security in the high precision sector because it is easier to pass on increased costs, such as the soaring fuel bills. If your services are in demand, your customers are prepared to pay more.''

Nor does Barker Collins have to worry about overseas competition, he says.

"The size and scale of the projects we are involved in means there is not a threat from China or India because time and transport costs become a major issue on heavy finished goods.''