6 minute read
Catering to an Industry Uplift
Jim Downey, Plant Manager of Hyster-Yale Group, says exponential growth is ongoing at the business. The challenge now, he says, is to safeguard that surge in demand while continuing to develop as a company.
Jim Downey and Invest NI’s Kevin Holland.
It’s all go at Hyster-Yale Group even with the pandemic and supply issues as its backdrop.
While many manufacturers have been making up for lost ground, or just simply sustaining business, Hyster-Yale has been busy growing its manufacturing capabilities.
The opening of a £5m 60,000 sq ft facility at its plant in Craigavon and the recruitment of many more engineers are just part of the ongoing developments at the business.
The new Craigavon facility has been named in honour of Harry Sands, who retired last year as senior VP and managing director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
And the new capacity is paving the way for dozens more jobs.
The plant also marked its 40th anniversary, in April, making 2021 a big year for this location.
Hyster-Yale Craigavon opened in 1981 under the Hyster³ brand and is the largest of the few companies that manufacture forklift trucks in the UK today.
“We have seen significant growth in bookings volumes,” Jim begins. “Our orders haven’t dropped the way people would think they would after a pandemic, in fact they’re growing quicker than we even expected.”
He says the market is expanding. The uplift in online retail is prompting a rise in warehousing and in turn a rise in forklift orders.
“The challenge now is to develop while sustaining higher volumes,” he adds.
“A lot of businesses experienced a postCOVID boom and ours is still ongoing, so now we need to match that growth with talent.”
Recruitment is high up the agenda at Hyster-Yale. It’s known in engineering circles for its impressively low staff turnover, with a large percentage of employees having been with the company 17 years or more.
“We are competing for talent in a small pond,” Jim admits, but the Craigavon plant has invested a significant amount of time developing its workforce through various initiatives over the years, including a 13step training program for all new starts, apprenticeship schemes, NVQ programs, lateral development programs and more.
Developing the workforce is seen as key to the future success of the Craigavon plant. And as a Queen’s graduate of philosophy, Jim cites his own career as an example of how the organisation develops people from within and provides the training to work at all levels of the business.
“We offer people with the right attitude and the right competencies the time to develop and create opportunities for themselves in a global manufacturing organisation,” he says.
While he confesses the business doesn’t flaunt the higher-level salaries sometimes synonymous with similar engineering roles, he says a “fair and rounded package with good opportunities to grow” attracts those with a long-term mindset. And it’s that committed candidate he’s on the hunt for.
“Staff stay and that is reflective of the package we offer and the culture. We’ve a higher retirement pool as a result of that loyalty and succession planning is very much part of the business too.”
During the pandemic, Hyster-Yale deployed a COVID Steering Committee to ensure workflow continued seamlessly. ”We managed the process in a solid manner and kept all our people safe,” adds Jim.”
Hyster-Yale’s Craigavon Plant’s main priority is building counter balance forklifts, IC and Electric Rider, from the ground up. It sells primarily into Europe, the Middle East and African markets.
Today it is navigating its way through a newer, greener model of forklift that will inevitably become the norm in warehouses around the world in coming years as net zero carbon emissions targets draw closer.
“Our Craigavon plant does a range of those products and we still build an IC product, but the focus now is towards a class one electric product,” Jim divulges.
“We’re developing integrated products, geared towards lower emissions and that’s something that the company prides itself in. The development includes hydrogen fuel cell technology and helping operators remains a priority so we are developing different battery exchange options i.e. rapid charge and integrated lithium-ion technology, all aimed at improving the op time of our products.”
“People are making decisions now that go towards electric products,” says Jim. “Our task is to make a greener product that is as productive as the IC product; the development we are doing right now will get us there and that’s good for Craigavon where we have one electric line.”
The business’ immediate interests are to keep up the momentum of demand for all its products, while developing in-house.
“We invested heavily in our extension, new products and our new assembly line. If you want to stay strong, you have to continue developing as well as protecting yourself from outside issues,” Jim concludes.
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