The Hadley Group is unique. The UK’s largest privately-owned cold rolled section producer has recently become the first British company to supply steel vine support pickets to the French champagne vineyards around Epernay.
This milestone was achieved due to the Smethwick-based company researching the French wine market in collaboration with potential customers and developing a unique product that satisfies their needs for mechanical harvesting.
Today, 46 years after it was established, Hadley employs some 400 people across four sites in Sandwell in the Black Country with a further 80 staff at its operations in France, Germany, Dubai and Thailand.
“We have a different business philosophy to most other local producers who are usually only supplying the Midlands’ industrial base,” marketing manager Bob Dunthorne said. “We started off doing that in 1964 but have now expanded further afield to provide a worldwide supply coverage from locally-based strategic locations on each continent.”
The scale on which Hadley operates has allowed it to create its own unique pre-production processes and an in-house academy. This has led the group to explore different opportunities resulting in it holding more than 150 intellectual property rights.
The academy, Hadley Group Technology, houses its world-class designers, engineers and technical people as well as training its apprentices. It has links with local universities and sponsors PHD students.
“You would not find this sort of technical development environment in other cold rolled forming businesses,” Dunthorne said. “We have built our in-house resources on a scale that is quite unique, so if someone comes to us with a specific requirement we can turn it around quickly because we have all the skills in-house.”
The group builds its own tools and machinery and through Hadley Group Technology has developed its own patented, high-volume steel strengthening process called UltraSTEEL™. The process creates a lighter, stronger and a more durable section as it passes steel strip through a series of rolls giving it properties that can make it 20 per cent stronger.
“Our patent protection has allowed us to further develop the UltraSTEEL™ concept,” Dunthorne said. “We have the scale to fund research and development on the technology side and UltraSTEEL™ is one of the fruits of that.”
UltraSTEEL™ won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Innovation in 2006 and provided the basis for its vine pickets which have become so successful since their launch last year that they are now also used in the vineyards of Chablis and Burgundy.
This is not the only part of the group’s success. It has tailored its pre-production process to support clients large and small. “In normal business practice a company will come to you for a profile but testing and development will take place in between production runs, limiting the time available for effective performance testing. Our set-up allows us to go to our dedicated facility and develop it in partnership with the client. It is about building partnerships on a local and international scale.”
Hadley is always looking for the next opportunity and going forward it sees UltraSTEEL™ building materials becoming an important element in helping companies to put strong, lightweight steel-framed buildings together.
“We are working on a big project in Dubai at the moment with a new version of UltraSTEEL™ and have set up a steel framing business there. We think that the Middle East will continue to offer us significant opportunities.”
created: 19/01/2010 14:27:27 by
Business Report