Britain’s manufacturing industry is often said to be on its knees - but try telling that to a Plymouth firm that was reborn in the economic crash of 2008 and has expanded and prospered since.
Dura Manufacturing is famed around the world for the quality of products it supplies to the likes of Rolls-Royce, McLaren, Aston Martin, Jaguar, Bugatti, Ferrari and Bentley, yet a major part of its business is virtually unknown outside a very small sector of industry.
Like other companies in the market, Dura Manufacturing can take sheet metal and shape it for customers who need anything from cabinets and workstations to walk-behind street sweepers.
But the thing that sets Dura apart is its ability to collaborate with customers at the design stage and help them create a product it can prototype, develop, manufacture, pack and distribute for them.
“A lot of subcontractors with similar machinery to us can also make anything a customer wants,” said Dominic Wishlade, Dura’s managing director.
“But we can go much further. Our background in design and our vast experience of manufacturing our own world-renowned high-quality products means we can use our expertise to help customers improve their design and cut costs.
“We also know what it’s like to be the end-customer ourselves, as we’re not just a subcontractor, so we understand more than most the commercial aspects that matter so much to our customers.
“Some approach us and say they want to sell such-and-such a product but they don’t want to have anything to do with the process - and whereas most subcontractors would run a mile because it’s outside their areas of expertise, we’re happy to take on the whole task and help them make their idea into a commercial success.”
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Mr Wishlade has been designing innovative products himself since the days of drawing-boards, and has seen the results win everything from the prestigious international Red Dot Design Award to a much-coveted Queen’s Award, only given to the creme-de-la-creme of manufacturers.
And, counter-intuitive as it might seem in this manufacturing climate, he and his employees at Dura take a particular pride in reducing a customer’s costs without reducing the quality of the finished goods.
“We use ingenuity to engineer out the cost,” he says, “and in some cases we’ve been able to literally halve a customer’s production costs by redesigning the product for them.”
Giving customers more bang for their buck is just one way Dura’s managed to keep a step ahead of the competition since Mr Wishlade rescued the factory and its workforce from oblivion during the Credit Crunch.
He was just one of the factory’s customers at the time and relied on it to manufacture the world-beating Dura cabinets he’d invented and which were gracing the garage interiors of everyone from wealthy individuals to household-name motoring marques.
With full order books, moving production from the threatened factory to another manufacturer could have put Mr Wishlade out of business, too, so he bought the factory, lock stock and barrel, paying the owner a fair price rather than taking advantage of the circumstances and snapping it up for next to nothing.
In the 10 years since, he has more than tripled the workforce, as well as investing millions of pounds in state-of-the-art machinery and improving the buildings in Bell Close, Newnham.
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As he lives more than 200 miles from Plymouth, few would have criticised Mr Wishlade if he’d closed the factory and moved it nearer his home, but he gave his word to the workforce and has kept it ever since, despite the regular round trips from Oxford.
“I see it as an investment,” he said. “Almost everyone who was with the factory when we bought it is still here, and people tend to stay for many years because this factory runs on mutual respect.
“People here are proud to be designing workshop cabinets and furniture for Aston Martin, Jaguar, Bugatti, Ferrari and Bentley’s automotive workshops, and we particularly enjoy developing and manufacturing products for our clients.”
While motoring enthusiasts and the automotive world know Dura for its workshop furniture and designer garage interiors – Mr Wishlade invented the concept, much copied since - he’s just as proud of Dura’s reputation in the industry as a centre of excellence for laser-cutting, punching, forming and bending metal, powder-coating and assembling products.
Dura Manufacturing, unlike many subcontractors, makes hundreds of its own products, but is creating even more capacity to take in work for other companies and individuals.
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It has machines that can run all night - and often do - and a paint-line that plucks any unused paint particles out of the air and recycles them, leaving it so clean that Dura’s workers could, in theory, wear their best clothes while paint-spraying.
Teams of specialists assemble products in one area, welders work nearby, and Dura’s secret weapon - its designers and inventors - beaver away in another.
“It’s not quite the picture of manufacturing that some would have us believe,” Mr Wishlade said. “Far from being on our knees, the amount of work we attract as one of the most versatile metal fabrication subcontractors is keeping us very much on our toes.”