VOICE OF THE INDUSTRY
The UK’s Leading Glass & Glazing Newspaper
VOICE OF THE INDUSTRY
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
How has 2021 been for you and, more importantly, what are your hopes and wishes for 2022? Have you new products or services on the stocks and anything special to offer your customers, or prospective customers, in the New Year? Will you be seeing everyone at the FIT Show or do you have other plans to promote your company in 2022? Or perhaps you would just like to thank your customers for their loyalty and wish them a Happy Christmas and a great New Year….
Simon Monks Managing Director, VBH (GB) Ltd
Mike Bygrave Roseview Windows, Director
Michael Hewitt Sales Director, AT Precision
2021 was a record breaking year for VBH. Happily, although VBH benefitted from the inflated market, as we all did, our successful 2021 wasn’t all down to boom.
Global supply chain issues, labour shortages and extraordinary demand have combined to make this a challenging year – for everyone.
During a time when the industry has suffered huge issues across the supply chain, AT Precision managed to sustain a ‘business as usual’ service, maintaining a steady 99.9% OTIF score throughout 2021, along with a minimal 6% price increase on our products.
The introduction of a host of new greenteQ products and new strategies have resulted in us serving more customers with more products. Crucially, new processes led us to achieve high efficiency levels with an average OTIF in the high 90s, despite the general issues of product supply. We go into our 40th anniversary year confident that when the bubble deflates we have put ourselves in a position to be able to thrive and continue to offer the best products and the best service. By concentrating on lifestyle, security and smart products we capitalise on the desire for big ticket items such as bi-fold and lift/slide doors, smart access and the peace of mind that security guarantees such as our Q-secure consumer security guarantee and £2000 proteQ10 anti-snap cylinder guarantee can bring. Choose your 2022 products, suppliers and customers wisely. Happy New Year.
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However, as the year draws to a close there have been plenty of positives to reflect on. For Roseview, 2021 has been a year of investment and change. We doubled our factory space, invested heavily in new technology and software – including two new purpose-built machine centres – and started our journey towards closing the skills gap by taking on our first group of apprentices. We launched a completely new version of our top-end Ultimate Rose sash window, and even joined up with industry legend Leon Day to launch Team Roseview Kawasaki! These changes will take time to truly pay off, but they’re coming, and they will make a difference. Roseview will emerge from the current situation fitter and stronger than ever before. So with more to come in 2022 and the FIT Show fast approaching, there’s plenty for us to look forward to. On that note I’d like to wish everyone a very merry Christmas and happy – and healthy – new year.
It’s all thanks to a combination of strong relationships with suppliers, a factory expansion, and the capacity to hold at least three months’ worth of stock at all times – all of which has contributed to an impressive 342% sales increase. We’re expecting the industry’s boom in demand to continue into 2022, and with our highquality Everglide range of aluminium bi-fold hardware and our Everseal range of gaskets, we’re well equipped to keep our customers happy. We’ve recently added a range of plastic ancillaries to our product range, enabling our customers to source everything they need to manufacture a bi-fold directly from AT Precision. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank our customers for their loyalty throughout the year. We wish them all a happy Christmas, and we look forward to seeing them at the FIT Show in May.
Andrew Swift Head of Operations, UK and Ireland, ISO Chemie 2021 has been the best ever trading year for foam sealant tape specialist ISO Chemie - sales are up 45% - and Andy Swift, sales and operations manager, says the modular construction market will be a key target for growth next year. He sees the UK market staying buoyant over the next 12 months as the economy continues to recover from the pandemic and building and construction activity remains busy, particular in the face of a chronic national housing shortage and the need to build more affordable housing. This will see construction projects ‘surge’ and in the modular sector, house designers will increasingly look at new ways to deliver low carbon structures, which use sustainable technologies to deliver measurable airtight, acoustic and thermal sealing benefits. “Our ISO BLOCO range of sealant tapes and the WINFRAMER thermal insulating and load bearing bracket support system can add real value during the initial and post construction phases, so I expect to see more interest in these and other products in 2022 and beyond,” Andy Swift said.
Phil Slinger CEO, CAB Members of the Council for Aluminium in Building (CAB) went through the ‘Great Reset’ in 2021. The aluminium in building supply chain continues to rebuild, despite many challenges. In 2022 the sector will see significant opportunities for growth, but it will be different, it has to be different. I too, undertook a “reset” in 2021, joining CAB in March. During 2021 the CAB team has been evolving and developing further how we keep abreast of key trends, developments and growth areas to inform our members. The drivers of change in 2022 will consider macro-economic, sociodemographic, technological factors, changing customer behaviours and the proposed UK Government regulations and targets. We will focus on explaining why aluminium in building matters, why the construction sector needs to change and how to approach the radical targets proposed. The reset has happened, UK government targets are far-reaching, status-quo is not an option. 2022 is for people in the industry to up the level of desire to change and drive through implementation of the required changes.
December 2021 | www.glassnews.co.uk
