Moving our Operation In Wales

Towards the end of 2021, we acquired the assets of CastleOak Timber Frame, from administration. The business had space and well-established manufacturing lines and was just up the road from our existing site in Abercarn, South Wales.

We were keen to develop the site at Abercarn as we knew we needed to grow to benefit the business, however planning permission was proving difficult.

The team and the factory were performing brilliantly at Abercarn. However, the factory was nearing its capacity and the time when this could potentially hold back the team and the business from moving forward was fast approaching.

The CastleOak factory in Ebbw Vale gave us  a new site with established Timber Frame facilities along with room for current production and the potential future expansion. The proximity of the site to our existing factory meant that staff could choose to move with us, and we are grateful that so many have.

Operational requirements meant that we had just two months to move from the old site to the new one and huge credit goes to all those people involved in facilitating the move. Special mention also goes to those that ensured minimum downtime in production to ensure minimal disruption to the business and our clients.

We had an incredible team that stayed at Abercarn until the very end and a fantastic team at the other end, helping us move production capacity to our new site.

Robinson Manufacturing (RML) and the team are now settled in at the new site in Ebbw Vale. The move has enabled us to manufacture roof trusses, spandrel panels and open and close panel systems from a single site without the immediate restrictions we faced in Abercarn.

General Manager Matt Korny is delighted with how the cross functional team engaged with the move performed. “As soon as the decision to consolidate our operations in Wales was made, the project plan kicked in.” He continued: “Every part of RML was involved in one way or another and the resulting multi-product manufacturing facility puts us in a great place to continue to develop the business.”

In future blogs, find our about infrastructure development and machinery moves that went into the move.