Hill’s Panel Products, a supplier of doors, panels and accessories to the furniture industry, has opened a second £ 3million production line to increase its vinyl door manufacturing for commercial customers across the UK Kingdom and Ireland.
Oldham-based HPP manufactures its own products, including Avanti doors, Glide sliding doors, Aspect and Aspire kitchens and bedrooms. It also supplies products from other British and European brands.
It currently offers 6,000 products that cover solid and converted MFC (melamine-faced chipboard) panels, vinyl-wrapped furniture doors and associated furniture hardware.
The new production line allows HPP to increase the production of its custom vinyl doors from 30,000 to 45,000 units per month in the short term.
In the longer run, this can increase manufacturing to 50,000 per month or more.
The new line contains automated routing, cleaning, glue spraying and vinyl wrapping machines supplied by Wemhoner and Sittex. The Italian-made Sittex equipment is the first in the UK.
HPP Managing Director Keith Wardrope said: “This new production line shows the continued importance of the company’s agenda of moving forward through automation while securing jobs for people.
“Automation can be seen as a double-edged sword if it results in job losses. However, HPP uses automation to secure jobs and grow.
“Automation allows us to be competitive in the door manufacturing market by making production easier and more precise. But because we are more and more busy, we have to recruit more staff.
“Our people are also extremely important to our success. We have a number of long-standing employees whose skills and experience are unbeatable, and we also attract good young hires in a range of roles. “
HPP’s expansion comes against a backdrop of significant commercial growth.
Sales increased 16 percent last year, up from 15 percent previously. Door sales increased 30 percent and 11 new employees were trained for manufacturing roles.
Company President Stephen Hill added, “We were making 20,000 doors a month 18 months ago. Then the production increased to 30,000 in 2018. With this new production line, the production will increase to 45,000 per month and we have the capacity to go up to 50,000 or more.
“All of our doors are custom made, with options on shapes, sizes, routing diagrams, hinges and decorations. The new line will manufacture doors in 40 styles and 70 colors, offering 2,800 possible combinations. Seventy or 80 percent of our vinyl wrapped doors will now be manufactured on the second production line while our first production line will focus on more complex orders.
“HPP is now one of the leading manufacturers of vinyl kitchen and bedroom doors and components in the UK. We are now operating 24 hours a day, five days a week in Oldham, which represents a significant expansion of operations and staff. “
HPP CFO Richard Mottram added: “The support from Handelsbanken has been very important in funding our new manufacturing and construction projects.
“Since 2001 our sales have grown from £ 5million to £ 34million, which represents excellent growth. The opening of this additional line is an important milestone for our continued expansion and development, for manufacturing and for our support to the UK furniture industry.
“A tremendous amount of planning, research and travel has gone into opening this second production line. Technology is the way forward for this industry, from customer ordering to manufacturing, and we need to stay at the cutting edge of technology. “
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