Pro Installer May 2020 - Issue 86 | Page 12

12 | MAY 2020 News Read online at www.proinstaller.co.uk ONE SMALL Q&A FOR LEIGH - A TITAN LEAP INTO ALUMINIUM Titan Trade Windows has always been known for its, well Titan efforts, to provide quality and service to its customers. Since starting up around 15 years ago, the Alfreton company has seen a lot of growth, not least seeing its five members of staff - who were mainly family members – swell to a team of 27. Also, the customer base has grown beyond recognition from the early days After another suc- cessful year in 2019; once again achieving growth in challenging circumstances. The Titan team have been working on the set up for aluminium manufacturing. This has been ongoing for the last eight months with investment in a new factory and machinery to give the best tools to produce the high quality Titan is renowned for, and at time of print, they had started manufacturing the first products. Here, Managing Director Leigh Titchener, gives us an overview of business at Titan Trade Windows, ex- plains the decision to man- ufacture aluminium, how it will not replace upvc, and the plan to get through the Coronavrius chaos… Hi Leigh, first of all, please can you give us an insight into Titan Trade Windows and your team? Currently, we manu- facture upvc casement windows and doors, upvc flush casement windows, composite doors, conserva- tories, aluminium windows and doors. We supply and deliver to the Midlands, Lincolnshire and South Yorkshire, we also have a few customers out in East Riding as well. Our core area and strongest in reve- nue is the area most local to our factory in Alfreton Derbyshire. Large and small window installers, housing devel- opers, general builders and joiners are the core of our business. We also offer a full supply and install service to new build developments as well. Our team is hard working and also, they have a lot of trust in each other which makes it a great atmosphere, they also know how to enjoy themselves which always makes get-togethers and parties a lot of fun. As a business, what have been your major accomplishments – long term/recent? I always think having a good team of people is the most important part of a business, the team we have are hardworking, loyal and conscientious which is why we can offer the excellent customer service we do. This has been a work in progress since the beginning, some members of staff have been here over 10 years so that to me is a major accomplishment. As a business, what have been your major challenges – long term/recent? And, how have you overcome them? We are constantly grow- ing so the biggest challenge for us is making sure we maintain the level of service and quality, this reputation has been hard earned over the years and something we are very proud of, luck- ily we have an excellent management team who are working daily to ensure the service and quality we offer remains the very best in the industry. Do you ever come shows/expos and if so, what do you like/dislike about them? We visited the FIT show last year, I like go- ing to see new products on the market and it’s good to catch up with suppliers plus meet po- tential new suppliers. We don’t exhibit but I know that those that do have a very busy week on their feet talking all day, hav- ing spoken to some that do this I don’t think it’s something I would enjoy too much! demand was ‘ increasing rapidly ’ Leigh, tell us about the recent venture into aluminium. We made the decision to invest in aluminium pro- duction because we could see from the business we were already doing buying in the product that demand was increasing rapidly, due to our experience in producing upvc windows it made sense to do the same with aluminium to enable us to control the lead times and quality in house. Will this take over from your previous systems or sit alongside? We have been offering the Smart system to our customers but when it came to making the deci- sion on which system to fabricate we decided to go with the Aluk system, they have a great reputation in the industry and having had several meetings with them and a factory tour of there facility in Chepstow we decided that they were the ideal supplier for us as they share many of our values.