At the cutting edge of success
Glazerite UK Group has undergone something of a transformation in recent years. With a new management team at the helm and a passion for continuous improvement across its operations, Darren Rhodes, managing director at Glazerite North West, explains why partnerships with the likes of leading machinery supplier, Haffner, play a central role in the fabricator’s drive for quality.
It’s our aim to enable our installers to be best-in-class, and to achieve that, they need high-quality products. To deliver those, we need a committed team, leading profile, and the very best in machinery.
We’ve worked with Haffner since 2004 when we installed our first SBA machining centre at our Wellingborough site. Just a few years later, Glazerite became the first fabricator in the UK to invest in a Haffner SBA machining centre specifically tailored to manufacture vertical sliders.
Today, Glazerite’s East Division in Peterborough houses an SBA4 cutting and prepping centre and a SMR-5 welder. Our Midlands Division in Wellingborough also has one SMR-5 welder, while our North West site is home to two SMR-5 welders. To add to our Haffner portfolio, and ensure we continue to deliver for our customers, we have just purchased a new SMR-5 welder, which will be installed at Glazerite East shortly.
Buying machinery from Haffner, which offers arguably the most comprehensive machine portfolio in the industry, demonstrates our ongoing commitment to our installers.
Haffner machines are efficient, innovative, and high-performing, and play a key role in helping us support our customers with increased output and improved productivity, while their accuracy in use enables us to reduce waste. What’s more, the automated nature of their machinery means we can be flexible with our workforce and scale up or scale down our operations to meet workflow.
At our Peterborough site, where we manufacture our Halo and newly launched Deceuninck range, the fast and accurate abilities of our SMR-5 head inline welder has transformed our operations, with the asset capable of welding two frames simultaneously, speeding up setup and cycle times and making our operations much more efficient.
Haffner’s exceptional team of in-house industry and technical experts underpins its next-generation machinery by offering proactive, added-value support for customers. Their consultancy-style approach and our ongoing relationship mean we can trust them to get to grips with our specific requirements today and further down the line. By understanding what we need now, as well as our future ambitions, we know they will develop and install the fabrication setup we need to support our own customers.
Winners of Machinery Supplier of the Year at last year’s G Awards, and finalists again this year, Haffner has made a name for themselves in the industry. Their phenomenal growth assures us we are moving forward with the support of an innovative supplier.
Haffner’s managing director, Matt Thomas, said: “We’re proud of our 20-year relationship with Glazerite. During that time, both businesses have grown significantly, and, like Glazerite, we continue to invest in our business and our team.
“Our innovative, high-performing machines deliver high levels of automation throughout the fabrication process and provide Glazerite with the flexibility and consistency they demand to continue to support their extensive customer base. On a personal note, Glazerite is fantastic to deal with, honest, understanding, and full of good people.”
To match our ambitions for growth and best support our installers, we are always looking for ways to optimise our operations and improve both our productivity and the quality of our output.
Having a strong relationship with the like-minded Haffner puts us, and our installers, at the cutting edge.