Packhouse and vegetable handling machinery engineers Haith Group unveiled their new £1.5 million factory extension in September to meet rising demand from the fresh produce industry.
Haith said demand from customers in the fresh produce sector has grown by 40 per cent in the past two years, opening its new 870 sq metre extension to its construction space to keep up with orders.
“We were simply running out of space,” says Haith managing director Nigel Haith. “With all the recent additions to our team we needed more space for people to work in and had to do something, and with enquiries and orders coming in at a rate of knots we decided to expand. It’s very exciting. It gave us an opportunity to sit down and look at our manufacturing process and see how we could make it better.”
Engineering director David Haith said the company was able to fine-tune its new space to meet modern demands. “We’ve gone into minute detail and thought hard about how best to lay things out. For example, the doors in the north end of the factory are seven metres square – exactly the right size for allowing an articulated lorry to reverse into the loading bay area. The new five-tonne overhead cranes are perfectly positioned so that the loading takes place under cover not outside in the open, where contamination might occur.”
The new extension is exclusively for assembly of Haith’s machinery, with its machine shop and parts department next door, meaning that components can easily be fed into the production line without having to go outside.
As well as increasing the size of its production area, Haith has also increased its workforce. “We’ve taken on ten new people due to the demand we’re enjoying at the moment,” says Nigel Haith. “Just two months on from officially opening the new extension, we already see massive benefits. We have reduced average lead times, we can move finished machines out more quickly, and it’s great that customers can do their own PDIs and can visit the site and see their system in its finished state.”
