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Cobble weaves plan B as textiles hits slump - bid to branch out as industry decline threatens future business9.50 AM on 19 May, 2008
19 May, 2008
Specialist machine building in progress at Cobble's Blackburn factory.
(Reproduced with acknowledgement to the publisher from the original article which appeared on Monday 19 May 2008 in Crain's Manchester Business)
By Joanne Birtwistle
A new design company is being set up in Macclesfield in a bid to secure the future of its £30m-turnover Blackburn-based parent.
AMTRI Cobble, which opened its offices in May, will design and engineer a range of manufacturing machinery for all manner of clients. It will operate as a separate venture within the 300-strong Cobble Group, which specialises in manufacturing carpet machinery at its plants in Blackburn, China and the US.
“There are few textile machine manufacturers remaining in the UK. It's a declining industry and we need to look for new markets,” explained Cobble president Geoff Hemingway. “The skills and machinery we have at Cobble are transferable to other markets and sectors. AMTRI Cobble takes us into a huge range of non-textile markets.”
The venture came about when Hemingway heard that machine design company Advanced Manufacturing Technologies Research Institute, known by its acronym AMTRI, had gone into administration in December 2007. Hemingway asked long-time friend and former-colleague Ian Laven to see if the business could be salvaged. Laven had spent the previous 10 years as an industrial trouble-shooter, managing the recovery of ailing businesses.
“The administrator's first action was to make all staff redundant, which is where all the company's expertise lay, so there was nothing for us to purchase,” said Laven, who has become general manager of AMTRI Cobble. “We had the idea of creating an AMTRI mark two, taking on the skilled engineers who had been made redundant, backed by Cobble.”
The company is initially targeting the automotive, aerospace and iron and steel industries, mirroring the work of the defunct AMTRI business.
Designs on machines
The aim is for machines to be designed in Macclesfield for manufacture at Cobble's 10,000 sq ft Blackburn factory, where it employs 140 staff. The division has already secured work for the next six months as it is working on projects for several businesses that had previously been customers of AMTRI.
Laven sees particular opportunities in the aerospace industry, as next generation aircraft move away from aluminum alloy construction towards lighter, composite materials. “The old AMTRI was a supplier to Airbus and we are already in talks with aircraft manufacturers,” he said.
It's an approach The Manufacturing Institute's Adam Buckley encourages. “Manufacturing in this country has not declined, it's transformed,” he said. “A company that designs machinery for other industries is at the forefront of finding efficiencies in manufacturing.
“Amtri Cobble is a tremendous example of creativity and innovation. Cobble is reaching outside of its four walls to find new ideas, knowledge and a new pipeline.”
Laven and Hemingway were reluctant to discuss Cobble's investment in the new company, but said that wages and operational costs aside, the only major investment was the design software at £6,000 a seat. “Cobble's investment in setting up in Macclesfield was not huge, but the payback will be,” said Hemingway. “The difficult bit will be getting a foothold in those new markets and re-establishing the old AMTRI name with Cobble behind it.”
The company currently employs four staff, including a sales person from the old AMTRI business, and two other engineers. AMTRI Cobble plans to have six engineers with software, mechanical and robotics expertise by the end of the year.
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