Attending the Southern Manufacturing show in Farnborough this week, the company is unveiling a new corporate identity, an extensive marketing campaign and launching of a new online shop to supply up to 100,000 products (www.hyfore.shop - previously ETG Workholding; Hyfore is part of Engineering Technology Group).
The Coventry-based company employs 36, but a successful 12 months, which has seen it grow by 15% and become a critical partner to manufacturers looking for bespoke jigs, fixtures, gauges and workholding systems for use on CNC machining centres, means it plans to recruit three people.
Explains Gary Dickenson, who runs Hyfore with Darren Underhill: “Our reputation has been built on our ability to work with customers on designing, and manufacturing workholding that allows them to get the most out of their machines and this includes clients producing precision parts for the automotive sector and commercial vehicles.
“The reason behind the new brand is to reflect our modern approach to manufacturing and to create a sleek identity that covers both our traditional activity and the launch of the Hyfore Shop, which we believe could generate up to £1 million of sales in its first year.
“This is an integral part of our growth plans and will help us achieve our vision of hitting £5 million turnover in 2017 and then accelerate sales to £10 million by 2020.”
Hyfore has spent the last six months amassing more than 40,000 different products that can be used with CNC machining centres sold across the world. These range from off-the-shelf vices, collets, gauges and chucks, to specialist parts, including pallet changers and fourth- and fifth-axis tables.
Says Rob Becket (pictured), who will head up the online shop activity: “This is just the start…we aim to be at about 100,000 products by the end of the year, making it arguably the best stocked virtual shop in the world.
“Our work in bespoke workholding gives us a great insight into what customers need and how quickly they require it. This has been fed into the set-up of the Hyfore Shop, with an easy-to-use website, great search engine to find things quickly and next day delivery available in the UK.”
