14
NEW YEAR MESSAGES
Gerald Allen,
marketing
manager, Epwin
Martin Nettleton,
MD, Euroglaze
We’re starting the
new decade in the
way we mean to
go on. That means
plenty of development and innovation
designed to add value to our customers’
businesses. We have a continuous programme of investment
aimed at continually improving our offer to our customers.
Last year, for example, we increased extrusion capacity at our
Telford headquarters by more than 40%. In 2020 we will be
opening a new 300,000ft2 warehouse and distribution centre
in Telford, which will help us deliver the level of service our
customers expect from a market-leading systems house.
We will also be expanding our foiling capacity, building on a
30% increase we made last year. As well as expanding our foiling
capacity, we will also be unveiling a new colour offering to help
our customers tap into the growing colour trend. Our investment
in this area recognises the continued and growing importance of
colour to the industry and will ensure we can continue to deliver
state-of-the-art levels of quality, innovation and turnaround
times.
Customers can also expect to see new product developments
in 2020. Key amongst these will be for Stellar, our award-winning
aluminium window and door system, which was the biggest
product launch of 2019 and winner of the New Product of the
Year at the G Awards 2019.
We developed the system to give fabricators and installers
a competitive edge in the growing aluminium market and it’s
already delivering. Fabricators tell us consumers are choosing it
over more established rivals and that aluminium windows should
have always been this way.
Why? Because it’s a pre-gasketed system that’s up to 20%
quicker to fabricate and uses approximately 30% less aluminium.
And features such as the patent pending pre-gasketed knock-in
bead mean it’s quicker to glaze.
It’s the only system on the market to offer a fully flush
casement window, with no stepped frame inside or out, taking
aluminium aesthetics to the next level. Alongside this, there’s a
flush casement window, a flush residential door, a bi-fold door
and a lift and slide patio door.
Customers can expect to see the new developments to the
system in 2020 cementing Stellar’s already stellar reputation.
Overall, 2020 will show Epwin Window Systems’ commitment
to offering our customers more options and more possibilities.
We’re looking forward to it.
In what was a challenging market
for many in 2019, Euroglaze
increased its customer numbers and
most importantly remained profitable.
We all know that the market was impacted by the uncertainty
around Brexit, but our successful marketing campaigns and
our growing reputation meant that we emerged from our 40th
anniversary year stronger and more efficient than ever.
While I’m obviously very glad to see a final resolution to Brexit
and really welcome the government’s plans to invest in the UK
economy, it was strangely satisfying for me to see just how well this
“Euroglaze already manufactures
what is arguably the broadest range
of Rehau products in the UK”
business did actually perform in such difficult market conditions.
We learned just how robust the processes and systems we’ve put in
place over recent years are, and that bodes really well for us as we
move into what looks like being a period of sustained recovery.
Euroglaze already manufactures what is arguably the broadest
range of Rehau products in the UK and in 2020, we plan to invest
in some exciting new products outside of that to strengthen our
offering still further.
We added Doorco composite doors in a Rehau outerframe to
our range in 2019 and we were really encouraged by the number
of existing customers who switched to buying their doors from us
almost as soon as they were launched. When it comes to quality and
customer service, we are clearly getting an awful lot right and that
gives me enormous confidence for the year ahead.
We’ve been working with an impressive group of MBA students
at Sheffield University on analysing market potential ahead of our
first big product launch to be announced very soon, and we are
confident that the increase we’ve already seen in customer numbers
will be the springboard we need to help us build our market share.
We’ll also be making the investments we need in new machinery
in 2020 so that we can increase capacity and productivity, and
of course we’ll be continuing our focus on reducing waste and
eliminating inefficiency wherever possible to help us deliver even
better customer service and product quality.
“We’ve been working with an
impressive group of MBA students
at She‚eld University on analysing
market potential ahead of our ƒrst
big product launch to be announced
www.ggpmag.com January 2020
very soon”
“We developed the system to
give fabricators and installers a
competitive edge”
/www.ggpmag.com
