Geo Kingsbury restructuring brings positive results

Managing director Richard Kingsbury (pictured) ascribes the upturn in business to increased confidence within the UK manufacturing sector coupled with more concentration by the family-owned company on factored machine sales. He said: "The greater focus that we are able to give to this side of the business is a consequence of Geo Kingsbury having sold its automotive test stand manufacturing division in July 2010 to US-based Burke E Porter Machinery. "Although production of test rigs for powertrain quality control was a thriving business, it was manpower-intensive and tended to dilute management involvement in our machine tool division." Other elements of the restructuring of Geo Kingsbury's Gosport operation have been put in place over the past few years. For example, recognising that after-sales service had become a business in its own right, the company appointed operations director, Peter Kingsbury, to oversee this side of the operation. He commented: "Understanding the market and making sure that service capacity is in place are increasingly important in machine tool sales. "It is largely based on good customer care that reputations are enhanced, and that directly impacts repeat sales, so it is crucial to get it right." Geo Kingsbury champions a 'lifetime partnership' approach to customer liaison, whereby it not only sells and services machines but also continues to support the installations to a very high level. It does this by offering on-going applications advice, machine upgrades, control options, tooling, and additional training courses for programmers, operators and maintenance staff. The result is that the potential of each machine is realised to the full throughout its working life.