Clearview National July 2015 - Issue 164 | Page 46

DOORS&WINDOWS

Highlands Rising Star
Leading Scottish fabricator and trade
supplier, Stevenswood continues to
see exceptional growth after securing
a £3.5 million investment from the
Business Growth Fund, an independent
organisation set-up by the banking
community to help support small
to medium companies to grow.
»»The investment has
already allowed Stevenswood
to invest in new property,
equipment and staff resource,
preparing the business to grow its
manufacturing capacity to 2000
frames per week.
Ron Hepburn, Managing
Director of Stevenswood, talks to
Clearview about the company’s
rise, future development and
reaching its huge production
target.
Co-founded in 1997 by Ron
Hepburn and his now retired copartner Dave Flynn, Stevenswood
was one of the first companies
in Scotland to offer a 70mm
sculptured frame system, Ron
recalls how the company grew
its production rapidly and in no
time at all, went from producing
zero to 1000 frames a week.
The company primarily
concentrated on manufacturing
conservatories with its excess
manufacturing capacity being
taken up by supplying windows
through its trade counters to
trade customers.
He said: “Demand for our
products grew so quickly, we
started bursting at the seams!
However, after Daviddecided to
retire, I was unsure if I wanted to
continue or sell the business and
looked at various options before
deciding to approach Business
Growth Fund (BGF)”.
BGF make long-term equity
investments to companies
that have robust and realistic

expansion plans. Ron knew the
business had expanded quickly
and felt that they were in a strong
position to be able to apply for
an investment boost, to help take
the business to the next level.
BGF awarded Stevenswood £3.5
million inward investment in
January this year.
Last July, Stevenswood moved
to a new 55, 000 square foot
factory in Livingston, almost
doubling the space of its
previous site, Ron recalls: “We
had to invest over £1m in new
premises to enable the expansion
of our capacity, but also with
extra space meant new factory
equipment that would allow
us to manufacture efficiently.
A new Stuga ZX4 sawing and
machining centre was acquired
as well as an URBAN SV800
CNC 4-head corner cleaner and
an URBAN 4-head horizontal
welder. In addition, new tooling
was added to our existing
URBAN 8 head and 6 head
horizontal welders to reduce
the foiled welds from 2mm to
0.2mm for much neater welds.”
Ron continues: “The new
production line is now extremely
organised and the company has
introduced the principles of lean
manufacturing, allowing us to
utilise the machinery and the
staff resource to full potential. I
have no hesitation that we will
reach our goal of 2000 frames
with all the investment in
place.”

46 » JUL 2015 » CL EARVI E W- UK . C O M

Another move to help support
its ambitious growth plan was the
need to recruit key staff resource
at the company. Ron explains:
“We have recruited a full time
financial director, Murray
McGarvie, and a non-executive
chairman, David Pearson, who
previously held the position as
group commercial director at
Focus Wickes.
Patrick Graham, from BGF
has also joined the Stevenswood
board and supports the strategic
growth plans by keeping an
eye on the financial side of
the business, making sure the
business keeps to budget.
That said, not all of the
investment has been spent and
Ron has big plans to grow the
business further and introduce
new branches.
“We still have some of the
investment left and as well
as acquiring new branches
in Dunfermline, Falkirk and
Stirling, the company is also
investing in larger premises for
our Glasgow trade counter,
which has outgrown its current
space.”
Ron added: “It’s very exciting.
The ultimate goal is to have 28
branches across Scotland. There

is also a plan to grow our kitchen
business, a side not directly
involved with the windows, but
one which will be housed on our
current five acre site and see the
company as a whole profit.
“We are going to extend the
buildings on the site, creating
a factory in which to create the
kitchens and a showroom for
customers to bring their clients
in to, to see what we offer.
“We do not install anything
ourselves and we supply only
to trade. The showroom will
be there purely for installers to
bring their customers to view and
choose their products. We want
to help installers, not steal their
customers!”
Distributing through its own
growing chain of trade counters
across Scotland, Stevenswood
continues to grow and with
more new trade counters still to
come as well as its growth in the
kitchen market, 2015 can only
get better for the company.
Ron comments: “Seeing such
growth within the business in
such a short space of time, has
made me confident I made the
right decision to not give up and
thanks to the BGF this is now a
reality not a dream.”