Serving the Teesside Business Community | 35
Tees Components general manager
Sharon Lane is hoping turnover will top
£6m this year after investing £500,000
in a new horizontal borer.
Tees Components
invests in new
machinery after
marine success
A
leading Teesside engineering firm
has invested another £500,000 in
new machinery after winning a major
marine contract.
Tees Components, based at North Skelton
near Saltburn, has purchased a new state-ofthe-art horizontal borer, which will improve
the company’s high-precision, heavy-duty
engineering services.
The Hyundai-made kit, bought from a
Sheffield-based engineering firm, can take
components up to four metres in size and is
already working 100 hours a week for Tees
Components.
It’s now fully booked into next year and
expects to generate at least £300,000 a year
in additional sales for the 50-year-old, familyrun business, which is now looking to create
more new jobs including a quality inspection
role.
General manager Sharon Lane says
she hopes the development will help Tees
Components reach a milestone £6m turnover
by the end of the year.
“It’s another significant investment for us
after spending £2.5m on new equipment
over the last four years,” she said.
“The new machine will enable us to be
more accurate with our heavy-duty work and
achieve the kind of tolerances we need to on
really precise projects.
“Our future is in this type of high-precision
work, and that’s where we’re focusing our
investments in gradually replacing our older
equipment and making sure everything is
modern and fit-for-purpose.
“It’s part of an ongoing investment
programme. We’re continuing to re-invest
profits every year in improving our facilities.”
Tees Components has enjoyed steady
growth in recent years after sales climbed
£500,000 a year for two consecutive years –
hitting £5.5m by the end of 2014.
Lane added: “We’re very busy. We’ve got
work coming in from a wide range of sectors,
a broad customer base as usual.
“It has been a steady growth for us.
We still have good export sales in our ship
thrusters and spares, and on our sub-contract
work we’re enjoying growth and adding new
machines all the time.
“We’re hoping to hit £6m by the end of the
year, but that will be a long-term growth from
£3m to £6m over a number of years, so it
hasn’t been overnight.”
Earlier this year, Tees Components was
awarded a contract by Cammell Laird
shipyard to supply four of its White Gill
thrusters to be fitted on a major new
research ship, the Sir David Attenborough,
which is being constructed at the Cammell
Laird shipyard in Merseyside.
Tees Components is designing,
manufacturing and building the 60-T3S-QR
models of its 360° azimuth thrusters, which
will enable the polar research vessel to
manoeuvre and position extremely accurately
even in heavy ice water conditions.
The vessel will be owned by the Natural
Environment Research Council (NERC), and
operated by the British Antarctic Survey
(BAS).
It’s a £200m Government investment to
maintain the UK’s position at the forefront of
climate and ocean research, and will operate
in both Antarctica and the Arctic.
Tees Components has taken on a number
of new employees in recent months and
plans to create more now jobs.
Lane added: “We’ve employed a number
of new operators, labourers and apprentices
and we’re now looking to create a new
quality inspection role as a direct result of our
recent growth.”
Tees Components has been operating out
of its North Skelton site for over 50 years,
providing heavy engineering subcontract
services to a wide range of power generation
clients.
The company expanded with the addition
of the White Gill product in 2005, when
managing director Clive Wood successfully
secured the intellectual property rights in an
acquisition from Elliott Turbomachinery.
Tees Components is also a well-known
local employer of apprentices and supporter
of STEM education and secondary school
work placement programmes, and in
2015 won the Teesside Business Award
for its engineering apprenticeship training
programme.
For more information about Tees
Components, call 01287 650621, email
sales@teescomponents.co.uk or go to
www.teescomponents.co.uk