The hardest working brand in the industry

Glass Times takes a closer look at Jade Engineering, a company that has produced tooling for fabricators of every PVC-U – and most aluminium – systems in the UK.

If you were asked the name of the most prevalent brand in the UK window and door industry….one that has products in every PVC-U fabricator and the majority of those making aluminium frames, who would you think of?

When named, the response from anyone outside of frame manufacturing is often ‘who?’ But mention Jade Engineering to any window and door fabricator and they will be very familiar with the company that will, after all, have supplied them with the tooling installed in most of the machines with which they carry out their daily trade.

Jade Engineering has literally produced tooling for the fabricators of every PVC-U systems company in the UK, and of the majority of aluminium syscos too. Extrapolating this, the vast majority of window and door frames manufactured in the British Isles for the home improvement market, produced using PVC-U and aluminium profiles, have been manufactured using machine tools designed and engineered by Jade Engineering. No other company anywhere, can make such a claim.

But who and what is Jade Engineering?

Headed up by Sean Mackey and Adam Jones, Jade Engineering is the combination of one-time rival tooling manufacturer J Tools – owned by the duo since 2008 – and Jade Engineering which was established in the late 1970s. These days, Jade employs more than 50 people in 30,000ft² of manufacturing facilities focused around Coventry’s Bayton Road, the mecca of West Midlands metal bashing. Here, the words ‘engineering’, ‘metal’, ‘steel’ and other descriptors that describe just what takes place inside, pepper the company name boards along this proud, true ‘industrial’ estate, one that represents the best of British.

Spread across four manufacturing units, Jade designs, manufactures and assembles all components, tooling and machinery using the most sophisticated engineering processes and design tools, with everything produced in-house. The tooling relied upon so heavily by every UK fabricator is itself produced in a factory packed with state-of-the-art machine tools, every one of them continuously in action, bar tool changes.

Other Jade factories manufacture a range of no-nonsense, specialised machines, including end-millers, saws, cleaners, welders and other associated equipment. Visit hundreds of frame factories throughout the UK and these units, distinctive in their jade green livery, stand out even amongst the fancy CNCs that, invariably, are fitted with Jade tooling.

Jade Engineering knows how to make frames. And such is the depth of their knowledge and abilities, perhaps the company’s most impressive work truly takes place behind the scenes. Some of the window and door industry’s most respected names now call on Jade and its in-house team of five time-served designers and their extensive knowledge of window and door frames manufacturing, when setting up complete production processes from scratch, especially for new systems yet to reach the market.

Rather than a conscious decision to create a manufacturing consultancy, this increasingly important facet of Jade Engineering’s work evolved from casually and occasionally providing advice on overcoming fabrication anomalies:

“We are often called in to resolve fabrication problems and we are often asked to design a fabrication protocol from scratch,” explains Sean. “From design, development, through proving and then on to making the tools and even supplying the machinery – it’s tremendously satisfying. This has become a distinct element to our offer and one that is usually part of a package that includes tooling and machinery, though not exclusively.”

In 2017, Sean and Adam purchased 50% of the share capital of Kombimatec Machinery, taking the firm into more sophisticated and complex fabrication solutions. Outright acquisition of SALtech Machinery and Edgwick Sheet Metal further strengthen the firm’s ability to keep everything in house.

The term ‘Made in Britain’ is highly appropriate for Jade Engineering.

“Everything we produce is manufactured here in Coventry, simply because that is the nature of our business,” says Sean. “But as Covid and other factors have combined to cause Global commerce to stutter in the past few months, especially with products shipping from the Far East, manufacturing everything locally has become a real advantage. The only issue we have faced has been caused by the incredible surge in demand that the industry has faced, but we have that well under control.”

What of the future for this remarkable company? The directors hint that we may see more ‘above the line’ from Jade but would not be drawn other than for Adam to say: “We realise the tremendous asset we have in having respected products used by such a wide customer base. I am sure we can do something with that.” Watch this space.