11
PRO INSTALLER DECEMBER 2015
PRO NEWS
@proinstaller1
Hardware
specialist
invests
£250,000
for new
warehouse
expansion
Hardware specialist VBH is investing
£250,000 in an expansion of its warehouse
in Kent.
The new facility, to be
in place next spring, will
allow VBH to hold an additional 800 pallets of fast
moving stock at the company’s head office and main
warehouse in Gillingham.
A change to the warehouse layout will also
speed up goods inwards
and outwards processes
and improve picking accuracy.
VBH’s specialist Architectural Aluminium division,
currently in Birmingham
will also be relocated to the
site at Gillingham.
VBH (GB) Managing Director Peter Rowlands said:
“The Gillingham expansion
gives us huge benefits in
capacity and efficiency.
Our aluminium division
sends orders to customers
throughout the UK, and
with the added space in Gillingham it makes it possible
to house all the stock under
one roof instead of two.
“There will be no detrimental effect on deliveries
to customers served by
Birmingham. VBH (GB)
currently delivers 98.6% for
catalogue items on-time and
in full.”
Unfortunately, relocating
the Aluminium Division
to Kent has brought about
the need to make eight
positions redundant. The
decision had not been taken
lightly, but restructuring
is vital for VBH to offer
customers in the UK even
better service now and in
the future.
The Birmingham sales
office will close at the end
of 2015 and the warehouse
operations will follow on
next summer after the
Gillingham expansion is
complete.
www.VBH.com
Trade Counter
Experience
National Plastics is the UK’s largest independent
trade counter network and when you visit one
of the stores it’s easy to see why. Quite simply,
the overall experience is second to none.
Giving customers what they want is
something that’s central to Managing
Director Geoff Foster’s vision for the
company, which is why the customer
experience is so important to him.
“Our customers are busy people and
our aim is to make their lives easier.
To do that, two things are vital: stock
availability and staff knowledge.”
When it comes to stock, National Plastics
is renowned for its range, which includes
fascia boards, soffits, trims, internal and
external cladding, guttering, drainage
systems, carports and canopies, windows,
doors, conservatories, EPDM rubber roofing
and much more. What’s perhaps less well
known is how much of that stock is always
available. “We aim to keep 99% of our
stocked items readily avai