600 UK invests to upgrade Heckmondwike facility
1 min read
600 UK is investing £600,000 in its manufacturing facility based in Heckmondwike, West Yorkshire, the home of Colchester and Harrison manual and CNC lathes, Pratt Burnerd International workholding chucks and Gamet Bearings.
The company is "radically redeveloping its current site layout to significantly improve manufacturing and sales operations to bring additional benefits to customers", it says.
The new reorganised and refurbished 75,000 sq ft facility will adopt a Kanban style production process for both factory-built and sourced products, which includes manual centre, Alpha manual/CNC and Tornado CNC lathes, alongside Pratt Burnerd International's workholding products. Additionally, adds 600 UK, new Tornado assembly bays will be introduced to the facility to accommodate the increased demand for the new Colchester Tornado range.
The new site will house a dedicated customer showroom, exhibiting the full range of 600 UK products, and will be complemented by the installation of new offices for all 600 UK sales, support and head office staff. It is anticipated that the new site will be completed during mid-2013, when customers and distributors will be invited to attend an open house event, which will be confirmed shortly.
The company says that these site advancements will enable it to provide a significantly increased finished stock for machine tools, machine tools spares and chucking products, particularly for Pratt Burnerd International, meaning that extra stockholding will be extended to the company's full manual and power chuck ranges.
"These are exciting times for everyone at 600 UK," said Mike Berry, 600 UK's managing director (pictured). "We have a proud heritage, strong brand reputation and a very capable workforce. We intend to build on our success by providing a working environment that will facilitate more efficient production lead times and further improvements to product quality, as part of our ongoing commitment to continuous improvement.
"Enquiries from distributors and end-users for all Colchester, Harrison, Pratt Burnerd International and Gamet's products have increased significantly, and this further investment in our UK facility is needed to meet the expected growing future demand from our worldwide customer base."
