HERI TAGE & VERT ICAL S L IDER S
In early March, demand for Quickslide’s heritage
products was increasing nicely and to handle
forecasted demand, together with a phased
upgrade of products and services, the company
had completed a £m investment for the next
phase of development.
This included a goodie bag of a couple
of quad welders and Urban corner cleaners
installed towards the end of last year, which were
supplemented by a state-of-the-art Schirmer
cutting and machining centre at the beginning
of . New vehicles were also bought and
wrapped in Quickslide’s distinctive livery, a
dedicated Deceuninck flush casement factory was
created and to top it all off, a new Business Micros
operating platform was introduced. Then, just as
this perfect cocktail was about to be served, on …
March the UK shut.
Much of the UK window and door industry is
now back at work, to some extent at least, though
it will be some time before volumes reach anything
like their pre-lockdown numbers. But Quickslide’s
Schirmer is now making frames, albeit at a fraction
of the numbers that it is capable of: “We are
winding the factory up again and, looking on the
bright side, this will give us an opportunity to train
more people on our new kit, as volumes build but
also of course, with a whole new management
system operating in the factory to ensure our
employees are safe,” says Adrian.
Nonetheless, Adrian believes fervently that
Quickslide is ideally placed to take advantage of
growing sales within a society that will be radically
different from when we locked down: “We all
have to work with what we have and adapt or fail,”
he says. “We have a great commitment to our
staff, to their welfare. And they are having to be
totally flexible as we rebuild, in terms of working
practices, hours and shifts worked, and in the way
that they take responsibility for their own actions
and behaviour towards each other, in ways that
could never have been anticipated.”
As sales volumes rebuild, it is anticipated that
sales of ‘heritage’ windows will come back earlier
and stronger: “Vertical sliding box sash and flush
sash window styles are often chosen by customers
in the medium sector of the market,” says Adrian,
“and whilst only time will tell, we believe that
such customers may be the least affected by the
coronavirus. These customers have had a great
deal of time on their hands to think about their
homes during lockdown and buyers of heritagestyle
frames are often sticklers for attention to
detail, which is why Quickslide pays so much
attention to authenticity. These customers
research everything thoroughly.
“Our business is built around the delivery of
high quality, replacement heritage-style traditional
windows and, whilst we continue to offer a full
range of windows together with sliding and
entrance doors, our focus remains on respecting
that and offering homeowners windows that
maintain the style of their homes as authentically
as possible. And to ensuring our installer
customers have the best portfolio of products to
show these demanding customers.”
Something of a paradox, the quest to ensure
something looks genuinely old requires an
enormous investment. Quickslide’s turn of
the year spending spree was in addition to the
substantial sums the company has invested so far,
including Graf welders – to produce seamless,
‘authentic’ joints – and a new paint shop that
allows precise mixing to emulate traditional
colours. The company’s brand-new Legacy vertical
slider was also introduced last year to expand
Quickslide’s heritage portfolio.
“We have an excellent proposition as we enter
some pretty unknown territory,” says Adrian. “And
although everything we did up to March was done
with a different world in mind, it will serve us well
as we enter this new, unknown future.”
Getting back to the future
Quickslide’s Adrian Barraclough says investment in machinery and services came
just in time for the lockdown, and adds that the heritage window specialist is now
well placed as the industry starts to get back to work.
June www.ggpmag.com
This Schirmer machining centre is part of a £ million investment
made by Quickslide and installed just before lockdown
The QS Legacy window
was introduced last year
/www.ggpmag.com
