‘Very positive’ manufacturer makes five-figure investment
Derby’s Acres Engineering has invested a five-figure sum to replace its extraction equipment as it gears up for what it hopes will be a strong second half of the year.
The Melbourne-based firm has recently returned the majority of its manufacturing employees to site after 40% were furloughed, and currently no redundancies are planned at the 30-strong custom manufacturing specialist.
Recently, Acres launched an online shop in mid-summer to enable smaller orders to be processed with maximum efficiency, which has seen them supply to new customers across the UK.
Luke Parker, managing director at Acres Engineering, said: “There is no doubt that this has been, and remains one of the most challenging years for our sector. The nature of what we do means a lot of our work is done in partnership with large manufacturing companies and it is sad to see jobs under threat across the country in sectors such as aerospace, automotive and retail.
“As the crisis loomed and our sales plummeted, we looked at all of our options and what we could achieve with the reduced ‘non-furloughed’ workforce remaining in the business. The key was to find viable products that added value with the minimal physical engineering resource, hence our pivot into the safety solutions which have been very popular.
“Now as the team returns to site, we have a very positive outlook and order book. We have now continued with our planned investment to ensure that we were looking after everyone as best as we can. Our investment in the extraction system is critical to ensuring the best working environment we can for the team and it will mark the start of further planned investments which we hope to announce in the near future.”
