Virtual factory tour
Veka has introduced a virtual tour allowing fabricators to view the factory, including the new lamination building, from anywhere in the world.
The site in Burnley, Lancashire, covers 400,000ft2 and spans two postcodes. It employs 350 people and produces over 30 million metres of profile every year. The new virtual tour, which works similar to Google Streetview, allows customers to walk through Veka from the comfort of their own home or office.
The virtual tour was developed as many customers said that one of the highlights of meeting Veka was seeing the plant and scale of the operation. The tour mirrors a personal tour and follows the flow of the process of manufacturing Veka’s profile, from the exclusive mix right through being loaded on to their fleet.
The online tour will be available via a password protected link on their website and contains hotspots and information zones providing behind the scenes knowledge and information about the company.
Dawn Stockell, Veka’s marketing director, said: “The pandemic has meant that we have had to embrace all things digital, which has given us new opportunities to bring value to our customers. The scale of our factory is often something that surprises people and we have been looking at a way we can connect our customers to the Veka experience without the need for face-to-face contact or when time and distance is an issue. Although we prefer to welcome our visitors with a brew and biscuits, the quality of the virtual tour provides the next best thing.”
The online experience guides visitors from the mixing plant to the testing lab where raw materials and compound are tested and then moves onto the extrusion floor which houses 32 lines extruding 100 tonnes of profile every day.
The lamination building is one of the newest areas on the Veka site, and has only been fully operational in 2021 – created to respond to the growing demand for coloured windows and doors.
The tour concludes with an insight into the packaging of the product and a glimpse into the High Bay which can perform up to 120 picks per hour.
The virtual tour also provides an insight in to life at Veka from the conference room facilities to the offices, home to everything from compliance to customer service and everything in between.
