The head of a long-standing Fife engineering firm says a new productivity drive has helped restore orders to pre-recession levels.
Alastair Lamond, managing director of Inverkeithing-based gear manufacturers Lamond & Murray, said: ”We had a two-year period where order intakes dropped by around 15%, but we have had an upturn in business since the turn of this year and are at least back at the level we were at before the recessionary period came in.
”We are very busy at the moment and our problems are of the kind that you like to have we are trying to meet demands.”
Mr Lamond said the position had been greatly assisted by a major investment programme which began eight years ago and has allowed new machinery to be brought in.
Well established in the energy sector, the firm is looking at new opportunities in the renewables market.
He said: ”We are doing a lot of work for the oil and gas industry at the moment and are actually exporting gears to a North American company in that sector.
”That has increased our exports to something in the region of 20% of turnover greater than it has ever been in the history of the company but we also do work in traditional sectors such as steel, paper and rubber.
”There are opportunities in the wind turbine sector, in particular for gear manufacture. Pretty much every one of those wind turbines has a gearbox at the top of the mast immediately behind the propellers.
”Whilst we will never be in the high-volume end of that market, we are getting some business for the maintenance and refurbishment of those gearboxes.”
The firm, founded in 1919 to provide machinery to the Scottish coal industry, recently got involved with the Scottish Manufacturing Advisory Service’s (SMAS) 5S programme. This ensures workplaces are organised and maintained in such a way that day-to-day operations are run more efficiently.
Lamond & Murray, which had a turnover of £3.5m last year, set its 33 employees to work and neglected areas of the firm’s premises have now been cleaned out and tired-looking machines have been transformed. The results were displayed to other Fife business professionals during a recent SMAS site visit.
Mr Lamond said the firm’s involvement with SMAS, which is part of Scottish Enterprise, had been extremely worthwhile and other manufacturers could also benefit.
He said: ”With the help of people like SMAS, if we can bring about something in the order of 10% to 15% efficiencies and improvements in our manufacturing businesses then that has got to help.”
An SMAS site visit was also held at the Dunfermline offices of FMC Technologies, a global provider of technology solutions for the energy industry. The firm has been working with SMAS to develop its Scottish operations and aim of the event was to give a clearer understanding to local manufacturers of oportunities within the firm’s supply chain.