Origin – a badge of honour

Glass Times editor, Luke Wood, visits Origin to learn more about how the company has achieved such success and what its plans are for the future.

In a little over two decades of manufacturing, Origin has enjoyed some impressive milestones.

Established in 2002, it moved into its current factory in High Wycombe in 2007 and by 2010 was manufacturing 10,000 doors a year. A year later, it went international, establishing a showroom and sales office in Dubai (Origin USA followed in 2013) and by 2014 it was celebrating its 100,000th door and the launch of the Origin window.

Fast forward to 2020 (and multiple new product launches later), the company was presented with a prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise for International Trade. Last year, Origin marked 20 years in business, a period in which it has produced over 400,000 doors and 300,000 windows.

What is the secret to its success? First and foremost is customer service, but that’s backed up by continual investment in product innovation and supported by a level of passion that is the hallmark of a family-owned business.

Customer service

My visit to Origin begins at the company’s High Wycombe factory, which has grown significantly since 2007 to accommodate ever increasing demand.

Headed up by Origin’s director of manufacturing, Dimitris Dokos, the facility is now home to 140 staff.There is a keen focus on in-house training and development, resulting in high employee retention, and the emphasis at every point of production is on quality control.

That is combined, however, with a production set up that is geared – unusually for aluminium – towards high volume.

This is achieved by constant investment in new machinery – in the last 12 months alone, Origin has spent around £500-600k on equipment – and highly refined processes.

Dimitris, who operates a highly polished lean manufacturing model, runs a tight ship, with clear instructions at each stage of production that are supported by the latest digital processes to ensure everything remains on schedule.

That also includes ‘doubling up’ on machinery to eliminate bottlenecks in production if a machine needs maintenance or repair.

According to Dimitris, production output is currently around 300 doors a day, with around 60,000 doors passing through the factory doors last year. Window capacity, he adds, has tripled in the last two years –

Origin can make around 600 window ‘units’ a day and in 2022, manufactured around 80,000 units.

The company’s output, explains Dimitris, was increased massively by unprecedented demand during Covid. It was such a boost – around 40-50% – that Origin introduced 24-hour operations and also invested £1million in a new warehouse near Bicester, just to hold raw material.

Supported by £9million worth of stock at Bicester, the company’s state of the art production processes allow it to run a ‘just in time’ model which translates to exceptionally fast lead times, very high levels of product quality and first class customer service.

Product innovation

Origin’s R&D department has always worked hard to keep one step ahead of consumer trends and that includes its most recent launch, the OI-30 internal door.

Designed to deliver a solution for homeowners who want to create separate, light filled spaces in their property, it has proven to be a runaway success.

It is the introduction of the Future Homes Standard however, which will come into effect in 2025, that has prompted Origin’s latest push into new product design.

According to sales & marketing director, Ben Brocklesby, Origin is working on two, completely new systems ahead of the Future Homes Standard regulations.

These include a solution that is built around triple glazing, but also one that aims to introduce next generation levels of energy efficiency with a double glazed unit.

“At this point we’re still waiting on the results of the Future Homes consultation,” explains Ben.

“Triple glazing performs very well when you’re focusing just on U values but in our opinion, that is offset by its additional cost, weight and the fact that it’s a less sustainable option when you take into account handling and transport.

“Our preference, therefore, would be that we could meet Future Homes targets with double glazing – but we are working hard to ensure our partners are equipped with the best solution either way, and we will be in a position to reveal more about that later this year.

“Ultimately, our service offering is our USP, it’s the bedrock that the business is built on, which is we’ve committed significant resources to bring genuine, high-quality products to market that will enable our partners to maintain their advantage.”

Family values

While Ben is keen to stress the importance of new products and the strength of the service offering that goes with them, he also highlights the advantages of Origin being a family run business.

“We’re a big employer in the area and part of the appeal is our strong family culture,” he says. “Unlike some other organisations in the industry, we are not obsessed with quick returns in the short term, we have the ability to make significant investments that will benefit the company, our staff and partners over the long term.

“That family culture also extends to the way we make decisions and find improvements within the business,” he adds.

“We have a strategic forum that is made up of 45 individuals from across the company, including directors and senior management, as well as representatives from the factory floor.

“We meet offsite, once every three months, and we discuss what we’re doing well, ways in which we can do better and ideas that can improve our processes. It’s a very successful initiative.”

Looking to the future

As you might expect from a company that has achieved so much, Ben explains that Origin is constantly looking at ways to grow, to move forward and create a better experience for its partners.

The new products currently in development at the time of my visit are part of that, but Ben also gives a sneak preview of even more significant plans that are due to come to fruition later this year.

“It’s too early to reveal exactly what those plans are – all I can say at this point is that it will result in improved quality of product, better service and greater agility within the business,” he explains.

“It all stems from being genuinely proud of what we do.

“Our mission is for the Origin brand to stand for something – we want it to be a badge of honour for homeowners,” he concludes.

“That’s a big reason why Origin has enjoyed so much success to date and why we are collectively pushing so hard to continue that success into the future.”