DOORSEXTRA
The sky’s the limit
»»Leading Scottish
fabricator and trade supplier,
Stevenswood has seen 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 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 David decided 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.”
Stevenswood also added 3 fully
liveried new Mercedes trucks in
January to deal with the growth.
Ron continues: “The new
production line is now extremely
organised and the company has
introduced the principles of lean
54 » M AY 2015 » CL EARVI E W- UK . C O M
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.”
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 w hich 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.”