Make our business your business
Quickslide’s managing director, Ben Weber, explains why installers must make it their business to know about their suppliers’ businesses – beyond just their products and services.
Like most manufacturers, at Quickslide we’re often guilty of talking about our products all day long. We’re really proud of what we produce. Our product offering is continuously evolving, but so is the ongoing support we provide to help our trade partners maintain a thriving business.
Because our success at Quickslide depends on their success as installers, we foster open conversations with our trade partners, keeping them informed, regularly asking for their input, and actively responding to what they tell us.
For example, we recently introduced a range of exclusive dual foil finishes for our Legacy vertical slider, a decision which came directly from consulting our trade partners and customers.
As an installer, how often are you invited to be part of conversations like this? And how much do you really know about your suppliers’ businesses? The investments it’s making and its plans for the future? Choosing a fabricator is a decision that affects your business’s prospects, so it’s essential to partner with one that is proactive and complements your company’s goals. Quite simply, if your manufacturer doesn’t stay ahead of the pack, neither can you.
So, here’s some vital information that you need to know about what we are doing at Quickslide, and where we’re headed.
We will be investing £1m in automation in 2024. This is on top of the £1.71m we’ve recently spent on our new state-of-the-art Schirmer. This is a bespoke machining centre that is already enhancing the quality, efficiencies, and lead times for our production of vertical sliders, along with providing the flexibility to develop future product offerings and really stretch the possibilities of what’s achievable for timber-look frames.
Automation is a priority for Quickslide because it allows us to reproduce the complex features found on authentic sash windows at scale. These types of detailed features – fully mechanical joints, Legacy’s new slim mid-rail, and run-through sash horns – would traditionally be classed as a woodworker’s craft.
Using automation to create these authentic details standardises product quality, improves capacity and, ultimately, the scope of what we can offer our trade partners. As a business, it makes us more efficient, allows for greater precision and better, repeatable results while increasing productivity. It’s a no-brainer.
Automated systems also remove opportunities for human error. More products can be produced with minimal variation, more complete orders can be manufactured on time, allowing more deliveries to leave our factory as planned.
Yes, our investment in automated machinery is significant. At Quickslide, our initial outlay will see us becoming more efficient by improving our material optimisation, helping us address the rising cost of raw materials, particularly steel, and providing cost savings by redeploying labour to areas of the business that need a human touch.
2024 promises to be another exciting year, and at Quickslide, we’re well prepared to take advantage of our industry’s growing shift towards a more automated way of working. We’re now firmly in the era of Industry 4.0, the fourth industrial revolution, which brings with it new levels of automation – including robotics, AI and the Internet of Things connecting devices and systems together smartly.
Is your fabricator ready for what the future holds? Our business won’t be left behind – and, as our trade partner, neither will you.