Making beautiful curves

As profile bending specialist Arcoframe celebrates 20 years in business, Glass Times talks to sales director, Charlie Richards, about the secret to the company’s continuing growth.

If you were to take a tour of any large scale PVC window and door manufacture these days, then it wouldn’t take long to find a piece of expensive machinery.

That’s because any fabricator worth their salt will have invested heavily in automation in order to manage a growing volume of orders, maintain consistent quality of product and ensure a reliable, first class service for customers.

But for some products, automation isn’t an option. These are typically higher value items that feature timber alternative joints for instance, or ones that require awkward shapes, such as curved arches and even circular windows.

This is where arched window specialists such as Arcoframe come into play. Based in St Helens, Arcoframe, which was established by sales director Charles Richards and production director Jimmy Chorley, is celebrating two decades in business in 2023.

Over the years the company has earnt an enviable reputation for taking on the more labour intensive projects that ‘regular’ fabricators are simply not equipped to handle and thanks to steady growth it now employs a highly skilled workforce of over 30 people.

More recently, it has enjoyed year on year sales growth of 15% and has expanded into an adjacent unit that has increased overall production capacity to 15,000ft², a move that underlines the firm’s continuing growth and its ongoing commitment to service a growing customer base.

According to Charlie Richards, the two main elements behind Arcoframe’s success are quality and customer service – two things that are made possible thanks to the hard work and skill of its employees.

“Profile bending is a highly specialised sector,” he explains. “We invest in the best equipment but the nature of the products that we manufacture mean that we rely heavily on the dedication of our skilled workforce.

“You can’t just feed the profile into a machine and press a button, it takes real craftsmanship to produce what we do and that’s all down the guys on the shop floor.

“They are our most important asset, so we recognise the importance of looking after them and it’s why we have a real family feel to the business,” he continues. “For instance, we gave all our staff a £160 bonus each month for four months over the winter period to help with the cost of living.

“That helps to explain why we don’t have a high turnover of staff, some of the lads have been with us since the beginning, for 20 years, and that experience is absolutely invaluable.”

Charlie adds that this level of expertise is not just evident in Arcoframe’s fabrication department, but extends to quality control and customer service as well.

“All of the team here are outstanding but we’ve also got some exceptional individuals that really help to make a massive contribution to how we operate as a company,” he says.

“Jim [Chorley] has over two decades of experience, he knows how to get the very best out of the team here and his son in law, Dave Forshaw, is in charge of quality control, so nothing goes out without being thoroughly checked over.

“We also have Jonathan Hill, who is our office manager,” continues Charlie. “Jonathan joined us at the age of 16 – he’s now 34 – and he really is the beating heart of the company, managing everything from deliveries to profile and any trouble shooting.

“More recently we have welcomed Val Featherstone as our new customer services advisor, which is a hugely important role for us.

“Again, Val has an incredible amount of experience and product knowledge, thanks to 23 years of working in the profile bending sector, and she is tasked with liaising with our growing customer base for all quotation and product queries.”

As Arcoframe celebrates its 20th anniversary, Charlie adds that he is confident for the future of the business, thanks to the recent addition of five large, ‘super fabricator’ customers and increasing demand for their services, despite a drop in overall market activity since the Covid and lockdown boom.

“I would say that overall demand in the industry has dropped by about 15% but we have been able to maintain our levels of output thanks to the new customers we have taken on.

“That includes the larger fabricators but we also retain steady business at the other end of the scale, from smaller installers for example. We can supply them an arched frame, fully fabricated with all the furniture fitted.

“We’ve also noted a big upturn in higher value, foiled product, an increase of around 25% over the last couple of years, and in fact we’re making more foiled products – greys and creams especially – than standard white at the moment.

“Thanks to ongoing investment in the business we’re very well placed for whatever the future holds,” he adds. “We offer a wide range of profile, including Rehau, Veka, Halo, Duraflex, Liniar and Deceuninck as well as a profile collection service, expert technical advice and glass templates on request.

“We’ve also invested in our recycling capacity and in our sustainability with solar panels, and of course we are looking to grow our workforce – we have taken on five new employees in the last 12 months – to ensure we can continue to deliver the best quality of product and service that we can.”