Klarius reveals £1.5million investment schedule for 2016
24th March 2016
Klarius Products is bolstering its position as the UK’s largest manufacturer of exhausts, CATs and DPFs for the aftermarket by investing £1.5m in projects that will start in 2016. The investment has been allocated to areas of the business that will increase production capacity, improve quality further and make more new parts available to the market on even shorter lead times.
Paul Hannah, Business Development Director comments, “we have a policy of continuous investment in Klarius, but this year we have been able to allocate a much larger amount of resource into the business. This is partly thanks to strong sales and a very efficient operation, but also some restructuring of company finances which put us in a strong financial position – we now own the land and buildings on the main production site in Cheadle for example.
“Some of the changes will just help us operate more effectively as a business and there is a certain amount of routine maintenance and replacement included in the investment programme. Some things however will make a difference to our customers and end users.
“We are building a new technology centre for example that will house our Design, R&D and Technical Support departments, including the test cell with the rolling road. This will provide more space for designers and engineers, allowing us to accelerate the time-to-market for new products as well as increasing the number of new products we release on a weekly basis.”
The largest investment is in machines, with one of two huge robotised Vector Pipe Line (VPL) tube manufacturing and bending machines being completely rebuilt. Looking not unlike something from the Transformers movies, and on the same scale, each one of these VPL machines takes aluminised steel sheet from a roll, folds it and welds it in a continuous process to make high quality, corrosion resistant tube for exhausts. It then bends sections and cuts them into precise forms for batches of new exhausts bound for the production lines.
Other substantial investment includes new wire bending machines, sound deadening glass fibre injectors, wire benders for mounting hooks and spigots and automatic tube saws. From an office point of view, the entire sales and management offices are being re-fitted and a new server room installed. Klarius is also adding to it’s fleet of dedicated delivery vans to further improve the already market leading customer service.
There are also significant benefits for garages. The news comes as Klarius announces a new nationwide IMI Accredited emission control training programme for garage technicians. The new offices and training programme have been assessed and certified as an official training centre, by the IMI, which provides the opportunity for the industry to gain knowledge and improve services nationwide.
Klarius Products has also invested heavily in type-approval testing for a large range of new CATs and DPFs which are soon to hit the market, making Klarius the largest stockist and supplier of emission control devices in Europe. Exports are growing substantially for the company which not only improves the bottom line, for the business, but for the UK as well.