ISSUE NO.13Autumn 2004

SYNSEAL

SYNSEAL EXTRUSIONS LIMITED, COMMON ROAD, HUTHWAITE, NOTTS. NG17 6AD

TEL: (01623) 443200 FAX: (01623) 550243email: sales@synseal.com www.synseal.com

If you would like extra copies of The Synseal Times

for your sales teams, showrooms etc.Call Phil Else on 01623 443 200 custo

mer sto

ries

products

news

the the times timesthe times

The competition, run jointly by Big 4professional services firm Deloitte andthe Independent on Sunday, examinesthe growth rates of over 6,100 middlemarket companies with sales of £5-100million. The winners, identified throughDeloitte research carried out inconjunction with Professor DavidStorey at the University of WarwickBusiness School, demonstratedextraordinary and sustained growthover the last four years and wereprofitable in their most recentaccounts. Companies over £10 millionmust have shown a 15 per centincrease in sales for each of the last fouryears. The companies were then rankedby compound growth over the last fiveyears, with the top 100 rankingcompanies identified as winners.

David Wenborn, Deloitte partnercomments: "Market conditions havepresented many challenges to fastgrowing businesses in recent years, yetSynseal Extrusions continues to prosperand develop. The resilience of theDeloitte Indy 100 award winners bringsgreat strength to the UK economy."

Nick Dutton adds: "We are delighted toreceive a Deloitte Indy 100 award. Theawards are a showcase for fast growingbusinesses, recognising our ability toprovide a unique service to customersas well as our flexibility in a constantlychanging and demanding marketplace."

Synseal wins deloitteindy 100 award for fast

growing businesses

Synseal was ranked

76th in the

DeloitteIndy 100a w a r d s

In the last issue of the Synseal Times, weannounced the imminent arrival of our newExhibition Vehicle (EVie). We invested £200,000 inthe EVie so installer customers of ourconservatory roof fabricators could be involved inthe process and co-own the decision to change to

Synseal.

The EVie is a specially designed vehicle that will beused to present Synseal’s Global conservatory roofsystem in the field, wherever you are. The floorspace, which is an astonishing 550 square feet, issplit into two areas – the showroom and thepresentation and meeting area.

the EViehas landed

"We can now match the level of presentation we offer at the Synseal site, on the road," explains Kevin Harvey,

Director of Sales of Synseal. "And prospects who have used it so far, love it.

Synseal invest £9.5 million in 18 months to maintain the momentum

Synseal’s growth inwindow profile and inconservatory roofsystems in the last fewyears has astonishedthe industry.

While many of ourcompetitors ground to ahalt in the last eighteenmonths, and others slippedback, we’ve picked up speed. The question manyof our rivals ask is whether Synseal can keep it up?Will a flood of orders cause it to bottleneck in orderprocessing, production or distribution? It is nomean feat, but Synseal anticipated that possibilityand invested accordingly so resources have keptpace with demand.

"In total we invested £9.5 million in the lasteighteen months," says Nick Dutton, Sales andMarketing Director, "to maintain the momentumand keep customers happy. We put in another newfactory, new extruders, and we doubled our rawmaterial mixing capacity with a new blendingplant. We invested in injection moulding machines

so we could make all theconservatory roofcomponents in house togive us, and ourcustomers, a competitiveedge. We added newconservatory tooling,commissioned additionals t a t e - o f - t h e - a r tpolycarbonate sheetcutting machinery and a

one-of-a-kind, automatic conservatory roofpackaging plant. Read more about all of this in thisedition of the Synseal Times.

"We’ve taken on more people too, whilst improvingour IT systems so we can accept and process ordersfaster and more efficiently, while giving customersimmediate confirmation that their orders are in thesystem.

"Our philosophy is to invest before we need to, soour customers always get the best quality at thebest prices without delay or disruption. We aim tomake good profits so we can continue to invest inour customers’ growth, and therefore in our owngrowth."

for the UK’s fastest growing companies.

The entire Synseal fleet of 17 tonne

delivery vehicles is getting a face lift.

The eye catching livery will be rolled out

over all 37 vehicles with the bold design

featuring on the curtain walling, back

door, cab door and wind deflector. Terry

Shakespeare, Transport Manager for

Synseal comments: "Although we don’t

supply installers directly we want to

create a pull through for our customers.

We hope this new livery will do just that

by raising awareness among fabricators,

their installer customers and the end

user, the homeowner. With two trucks

and a long wheel base transit completed

so far, we’ve already had positive

feedback on the design and colours

from our customers."

new livery forsynseal’s delivery

the global dream revisitedSynseal has reprinted another 25,000 copies of the‘global dream’ hardback book, despite only beinglaunched less than 12 months ago. The original 16,000copies have already been snapped up. "We have invested over£50,000 in the combined 41,000 books," comments Nick Dutton."We had to print more because not only have we run out of thispremium marketing support item, we are also taking the opportunityto incorporate the latest information on the roof. As with the original,the reprints will come with the option of overprinting which meanscustomers can personalise the book for their own business whilebenefiting from the investment from Synseal."

Synseal’s technical vans providethe support fabricators need

Synseal appreciates every conservatory roof is different. Its fournew technical vans are designed to bring the technician andnew tools together to help fabricators with the initial set up, ifthey are new to Synseal. . Dave Bingley, Conservatory Operations Manager of Synseal,comments: "The technical vans are great for getting initialmachinery out to new fabricators. Having the expertise andmachinery there at the same time makes the set up time quicker. Wealso use the vans as part of our ongoing technical support schemefor existing fabricators and their installer customers.

Nick Dutton. Sales & Marketing Director

what’s going on inconservatories?

“In two words – a lot! And it’s precisely these excitingchanges that are driving Synseal’s massive £9.5minvestment to ensure our customers keep growing toreach their full potential. Some of you may have read newsof the conservatory market in recent editions of theFinancial Times (21st September 2004) or the DailyTelegraph (29th August). Huge developments are afootand the National business press are picking it up.Journalists from both the Financial Times and the DailyTelegraph were especially interested in how Synseal’scustomers’ growth has taken us to number two in themarket by mid October. According to the reports,Ultraframe’s market share had slipped to 34 per cent, asK2 and Synseal began aggressive growth. Ultraframe nowcommands just 23.5 per cent of the market, with Synsealcontrolling 19 per cent and K2 16 per cent.

“The conservatory market is reported to be continuing itspattern of growth despite some companies talking themarket down. As reported, industry specialists RobertPalmer’s figures suggest growth of 4%, and Michael RigbyAssociates’ growth forecasts have pared back from 12% to5%. But both independent sources suggest growth, notdecline. Synseal and its customers agree that the market isnot slowing. And we’re aiming higher. As you can seefrom this edition of the Synseal Times, we’ve invested £9.5million in 18 months because we’re committed to thecontinuous development of the production process,innovative product developments and marketing support.We are committed to ensuring our customers remaincompetitive in what is still a competitive but profitablegrowth market.”

P.S. To read the national press articles in full, visit www.synseal.com

Transport’s Simon Clarke and Terry Shakespeare

FM 31451BS7950/7413

KM 41324

the times

Whatever the product, long supply chains mean more complexity and more associated

costs as each supplier adds their margin. It’s not only the costs that multiply. Room

for error, and the levels of frustration also increase. That’s why Synseal

always aims to keep its supply chain as short as possible, the

latest evidence of this being the launch of its own

polycarbonate closure profile. "The new profile

looks better on the end of the polycarbonate roof,

with a sculptured shape that we have designed to

co-ordinate perfectly with the glazing bar top

cap," explains John Rosser, Production Director

of Synseal. "We can match it so well because

we are now manufacturing the closure

profile in-house. This means we have more

control over the quality of product we

supply, so our customers get a better product

at the end of a shorter supply chain. The new

closure is available in all of our profile colours."

new polycarbonate closure profile

The next development

from Synseal’s product

development team will be

the company’s own box

gutter gallows bracket.

Nick Dutton comments on

this latest product for

conservatories: "We’ve

always recommended the

application of the gallows

bracket in our structural

guides, but until now we

had to rely on an external

supplier. So to make it a

more cost effective

alternative for our

customers, we’ve invested

in new tooling and

software upgrades to bring

yet another element of

manufacturing in house.

This ‘made to measure’

gallows bracket also results

in a perfect fit and colour

match for our fabricators."

new box

guttergallowsbracket

synseal launches

XT4the biggest

and bestglazing bar ever

This means easier and quicker fabrication and an even better looking

conservatory. This new section has been designed to retain the common

78mm height shared by all Synseal’s other glazing bars, so that it can be

cross-utilised with other sections without compromising the aesthetics.

"The XT4 has been designed as a result of a customer suggestion to our

Syntek website," explains Nick Dutton. "Customers appreciate the fact we

listen to what they want and act on it. This is just another example of us

doing just that. "

Synseal is launching a new glazing bar forboth the Shield and Global conservatory roofs.

The gargantuan bar enables spans of up to 4m withoutthe need for extra reinforcing or bolster bars even with

800mm centres!

increasingnumbers and

improving qualityWe have also invested nearly £300,000in a new Conservatory Eaves BeamPreparation machine to automate thedrilling and routing process. Thenecessary information is fed directlyfrom a computer to give pinpointaccuracy.

The new machine is quicker andproduces less wastage. With sales of ourconservatory roofs increasing we areconstantly looking at ways to becomeeven more efficient.

conservatorysaw centre

Synseal has invested over £100,000 in anew conservatory saw centre. Ratherthan having to manually feed each pieceindividually, the machine auto-feeds 20 lengths of profile at a time. Thecomputerisation means that theaccuracy and consistency is superb.

The saw centre has now been fullyoperational since July and we aredelighted with the results. The increasein Synseal’s conservatory roof sales hasmade us look closely at areas we canautomate to keep quality high, but costsdown for our customers.

all wrapped up

We have also recently spent nearly£200,000 in a wrapping machine that’sespecially designed to increase the speedand efficiency of the packing process, butalso to ensure that when the product isdelivered to our customers, it is the samehigh quality as when it leaves our factory.The wrapping machine is fully automatedand includes conveyors either side tomaintain the speed. It takes up 189m2

which is more space than Synseal startedits conservatory department in! But it canpack an entire conservatory roof in 6minutes, something we need to do tokeep up with the volume our customersare selling. The speed of the newwrapping machine will only be restrictedby how fast the pieces are loaded ontothe conveyor.

new polycarbonatecutting tableunique to UK

The new polycarbonate cutting tablerecently installed by Synseal is the onlyone in the country. The table has replacedtwo separate machines to improveefficiency. It never needs to be idle as onebed can be loaded while the other isbeing cut. The company that built thetwin bed table had received no interest init because other companies just don’t cutenough volume to warrant it. In contrastwe were cutting 120 polycarbonatesheets per day, so we put the idea intoaction and it has more than justified itsinvestment.

Synseal continues to be busy investing time and money intothe development of its production process. By increasingcapacity to stay ahead of increasing demand, our customerswill continue to get the high quality products they’re used to.Steve Musgrave, Production Director of Synseal explainswhere this latest round of investment has been spent.

Nick Dutton, Sales and Marketing Director of Synseal argues that manufacturing is at theheart of innovation, productivity and profitability, and as markets hot up, new business modelsmean there’s no longer any room for non-producing agents.

NICK’S IN THE CHAIR

Nick Dutton, Synseal’s Salesand MarketingDirector

glass age/2004

The TUC recently reported 198,000UK jobs lost in manufacturing fromApril 2003 to March 2004 and calledfor urgent action. Reports in themedia have highlighted the threat toBritain’s manufacturing base fromChina, India and Korea which aregrowing rapidly and proving to becompetitive in quality and price. Thethreat to employment was furtherunderlined when Dyson, theinnovative household appliancemanufacturer, transferred itsmanufacturing base to Asia. It cited anumber of reasons, the mostsignificant being the massivedifferential in the costs ofmanufacturing. Scratch beneath thesurface though and you’ll discovermany other reasons apart from costas the key drivers behind the declinein manufacturing in this country.

Getting your hands dirtyIt’s just defeatist nonsense, negativethinking - an excuse to avoid gettingyour hands dirty. It has becomefashionable to paint services as goodand manufacturing as old fashioned,just an early stage of development ofa country or a business. Many gotcarried away by some of Britain’shigh profile manufacturing failuresand have publicly stated that Britaincan no longer compete inmanufacturing and that we’re just nogood at it now. Companies getseduced by the more fashionableidea of outsourcing, salivating at theprospect of extra profit for less effort.Many were enticed by the idea ofthe high margins and low overheadsof being a ‘virtual company’ or anon-producer. For some, scrappingthe manufacturing model – keepingtheir hands clean – seemed a clever,progressive thing to do. But, if youcan’t get manufacturing right, then‘outsourcing’ – whether to othercompanies at home or abroad – isnot necessarily the answer. And whenmarkets and routes to market start to

shift, such a model simplypushes problemsdownstream. Butmanufacturers who takemanufacturing seriouslyemploy smart thinking andtechniques like leanmanufacturing to cutdouble handling, excessstocks, waste and lengthylead times to transformtheir operations. Ally that tothe benefits of smart designand innovation and youhave an enduring competitive edge.

One level too manyIn the conservatory market, someconservatory system ‘manufacturers’ choseto outsource the dirty stuff –manufacturing – and got others to maketheir product before shipping it back forassembly and packing, and the addition ofa juicy margin. The product is then sentoff to fabricator customers, who make it,and sell it to installers who in turn sell it tothe public. As long as the market is smalland high priced this model works. Butonce a mass market opens up, it’s nolonger viable. As the market becomesmore competitive, there’s not enoughmargin left in this type of outsourcingmodel to share between everyone. There isat least one level and one margin toomany in the supply chain. And someone’sgot to go. So inevitably some fabricatorsswitch to brands that allow them tocontinue manufacturing while paying fortheir overheads and making the marginsthey need. Those who stay however, haveto face up to seeing their supplierattempting to shorten the supply chain topreserve their margins. Some suppliers tryto persuade fabricators to stopmanufacturing by offering low margin‘products in a box’. This will never work.Fabricators are manufacturers - not

stockists - and as such have heftyoverheads in people and machinerythat need to be paid for. It’suntenable and it’s probably just atemporary step towards the suppliergoing direct and competing withtheir own customers, rather than giveup their virtual status and become amanufacturer. Most significantly itundermines the business model of thefabricator.

Designing out; not sourcing outLike models in other industries,suppliers who use leanmanufacturing, and clever innovationto ‘design out’ restrictions and costlybits, rather than taking the apparentlyeasy option of ‘sourcing out’, makethe difference for the entire supplierchain. Take conservatories. Using onecomponent instead of three or fourtraditional parts, brings benefits interms of time, money and hassle. Italso results in a stronger product.Installers who used to take 3 days toinstall a conservatory can now installthe roof in 43 minutes.

Far from being the poor cousin in thesupply chain, manufacturing is at theheart of innovation, productivity andprofitability. The philosophy behindevery true manufacturer is thefreedom and skill to design andproduce products people want at theprice they want. It is market led, notCity boardroom and share price led.The danger – as some virtual‘manufacturers’ are discovering – isthat virtual ‘manufacturers’ have lessof a grip on reality than realmanufacturers. Like an avalanche,when the market moves, virtualmanufacturers get swept quicklyaway. It doesn’t take long forcustomers to vote with their feet forproduct and prices they want.

Manufacturing is at the heart of innovation,productivity and profitability.

The Trouble with VIRTUAL MANUFACTURING

After a three-way pitch for thecontract, Synseal customer Nu-Era landed the £250,000 jobof installing a conservatory atthe prestigious LightwaterValley Theme Park.

Gordon Bosworth, Director ofNu-Era explains how they wonthe project: "We won it thanksto our professional presentationand our ability to work to tightdeadlines. We used Synseal’sShield Conservatory System tobuild this 50 square metre,double ended ‘P’ conservatory.We used Shield profile for thewindows and doors adjacent tothe conservatory that alsoneeded updating. We were keento work on this project becauseit will be seen by the 500,000(approx) people per year thatvisit the theme park."

water tightdeal for

lightwaterpark

switches to globalLeading conservatory roof fabricator, Boltonbased Rooftec fabricated a well respectedsystem for five years, but has now switchedto global. And after just three months oftaking on the new system, fabrication hasincreased from 35 to 55 roofs per week.

Shaun Rosimus, Managing Director explainswhy Rooftec switched: "Our previous systemwas also a fitter friendly roof, but the market wasgetting more and more competitive and weneeded to act fast to have a serious chance ofcompeting. We wanted something we could sellto our customers, but also something thatwould be quicker for us to make. Havingchecked out several suppliers we opted forglobal. It offered the fastest fabrication time aswell as the ability to become more automated,and as a result more organised on the factoryfloor. We now have a much cleaner and so moreefficient factory floor thanks to global. "The aesthetics of global are also superb – it hasa better, neater finish than our previous roof andas a result we are selling more. Three months

ago we were making 35-40 roofs per week. Justthree months later, since introducing global weare making 50-55 roofs per week. We are aimingfor 80-90 roofs per week in the next twomonths, or next year at the latest. We areconfident this is possible with global, and wehave the capacity to achieve this. Dealing withSynseal has proved to be far superior to dealingwith anyone else we’ve ever dealt with. Thespeed of action is excellent because decisionmaking is so quick."

space age plastics to sellglobal conservatory roofs

Space Age Plastics has expanded its productoffering by adding the Global roof system toits portfolio. The decision – in the words ofManaging Director, Colin Deuchars - was ‘toensure we retain our competitive position inthe conservatory market place, by havingsuitable product that meets all market sectorneeds’. Colin continues: "As competition withinthe industry continues to hot up, we realisedthat for us and more importantly ourcustomers, widening our product range wasthe only way we’d all earn the sales and profitsfrom conservatories that we deserve. Welooked around at various other roofing systemsbefore opting for Global, but thanks to its fasterbuild times, and easier installation,customers told us they’d like to tryit out.”

Space Age Plastics is going forgrowth and is significantly lookingto increase its turnover.Conservatories currently representmore than 50% of turnover. Colinadds: "Going forward, we want to

increase the proportion of our conservatorybusiness to over 70% from our network of 3branches across England. To achieve this, oursuppliers need to offer, and deliver, the rightproduct, at the right price, at the right time.We are ensuring we work with companies whoachieve the balance between productdevelopment, marketing and true value formoney. Clarity and openness ofcommunications are also important becausefor Space Age, a supplier is more than just asupplier; it must be a true partnership. We arelooking forward to achieving just this withSynseal and Global."

Space Age Head Office

Shaun Rosimus and Gary Corless of Rooftec

the times

rjm windows plan to

doubleturnover

with synsealRobbie McKane, Partner of RJM Windows hasbeen in the window industry for twenty-eightyears. Along with his wife, this seasonedfabricator has built his company up to a £1.8million turnover. Recently RJM consolidated itsposition, by opening a new showroom worth£50,000.

The new showroom is the largest in Cornwall at 20x15metres and contains four conservatories, sliding sashwindows and doors. The showroom attracted 500 peopleon its first day. "At this rate, the new showroom willdouble our turnover by the end of next year," enthusesRobbie. "We are confident our sales will grow so muchbecause of the new showroom but also because we havea strong partnership with Synseal.

"RJM has worked with several well-known manufacturers

in the industry including Rehau and Network Veka. We

have watched Synseal develop from a small fabricator into

the leading systems company it is today. Watching its

growth, we believed it stood out from its competitors and

on closer inspection we were right. It offers a good strong

profile at a competitive price with excellent delivery times

and service."

Taylor Made was one of the firstlarge fabricators to make awholesale swing to conservatories. Itis always on the look out for makingthe running in new markets and inspearheading new products. Thecompany has just announced thelatest evolution in its 19 year oldhistory: it has started to useSynseal’s Shield conservatorysystem.

Managing Director, Alan Fowler, explainsthe thinking behind this big decision:"We are currently supplying around 60retail conservatories every week of theyear from our showroom clearly visiblefrom the M6/M5 junction, the largestconservatory showroom in the country.In addition we’ve also just established anew trade arm, BIY Conservatories Ltd”.Paul Wilding has joined the team with aspecific aim to manage the new BIYproject "The Shield product fits perfectlyinto our BIY plans" adds Paul.

Paul continues, "From a fabricator’sperspective the Shield system is greatbecause its second generation design

incorporating efficiency and time savingfeatures means our manufacturing timeis cut down, without any compromise onquality. It’s the simple things that makethe difference too. For example, Shield’seasy profile identification uses commonsense product coding which is vital tokeep our manufacturing as smooth andcost effective as possible. Specifically,the box gutter system is also ahead of itstime - unlike some systems, it strips outunnecessary components.

"The support from the Synseal team hasbeen outstanding and highlyprofessional. This goes especially for thetechnical support, and the breadth anddepth of information they gave us to getgoing. Compared with other systems,the Shield product is well thought outand designed and has constant newproduct developments and upgrades.This combined with Synseal’s approachof really listening to customers’ feedbackand suggestions, means they createconfidence and enthusiasm about ournew relationship - a refreshing change inthis sometimes negative and competitiveindustry."

Anotherlarge scalerecruitment

driveSynseal’s latest recruitment openday was an overwhelming success.Eager to participate in ourcontinued expansion, nearly 700people turned up to apply for 71production and administrationvacancies. .

With the event proving even moresuccessful than last year’s, demandfor positions at Synseal reflects ourstanding as a major player in thewindow and conservatory markets.We already employ more than 600people, but needed to expand ourworkforce to stay ahead of thedemand for our windows andconservatories. Sales forconservatories are currently£2million per week. .

Commenting on the latestrecruitment drive, Nick Dutton says:"We’re delighted that our continuedgrowth means we can create evenmore jobs. It’s nice to know that notonly do people want to do businesswith us, but as one of the largestemployers in the Sutton-in-Ashfieldarea, people want to work forus too." .

coming back to synsealAs the last Window Benchmarks Report from Reputations Plus shows, Synseal’s

customers are a loyal bunch. Seventy seven per cent of the Synseal fabricators

interviewed described themselves as ‘very loyal’. "Although on the whole our

customers stay with us, sometimes things go wrong," explains Nick Dutton.

“Unfortunately, however in June 2003 one of our customers felt it was time for a

change to pastures new. But we are delighted that less than a year later, Wharfe

Valley Windows came back to Synseal."

"We were with Synseal for three years before we switched to another big new

window profile company," comments Dave and Fiona Carter, owners of Wharfe

Valley Windows. "But our customers weren’t happy with the new profile and we

weren’t happy with the deliveries we were getting from our new supplier. We

soon realised we shouldn’t have switched from Synseal. The Shield 70mm system

is excellent – it’s what people want, which we found not to be the case with the

other supplier’s system we chose."

Most of you will probablyhave read about the increasein polycarbonate prices thatis affecting our industry andothers. Suppliers are havingto increase their prices to

cope with the increase incosts. Indeed ourpolycarbonate sheet costshave also risen, a rise thatSynseal is absorbing toensure our customers can

remain competitive in thiscompetitive market. We’vedone this because werecognise that if you do well,so do we.

synseal’sinstallation guide

Synseal is now selling in excess of 1000 conservatory

roofs a week. One of the reasons it is so successful is

because it’s so easy to install. But to make it even

easier an assembly guide accompanies every Synseal

roof that leaves the Sutton-in-Ashfield site. "We don’t

know where the roof will end up when it leaves us,"

explains Nick Dutton. “That’s why we include an

installation guide with every single roof. The simple

step-by-step guide, fully illustrated with photos and

easy to follow diagrams, demonstrates a job from

beginning to end. It details what tools you need, how

to take good care of products on site, as well as taking

you through the actual installation. The guide has

been designed to ensure the quality products that

leave our factory are installed to the highest standards

on site."

useshield

RJM showroom

The grass isn’t always greener

Taylor Made’s showroom - the largest conservatory showroom in the country