25,000 sq ft factory acquisition is next ‘quantum leap’ for fabricator
Posted on 03/03/2016
A long-serving trailblazer in the glass and glazing industry is celebrating another major business milestone.
Family run bi-folding door specialists TWR Bifolds have acquired a 25,000 sq ft site that will become its second factory.
The new site in Peterlee, Country Durham, represents a major acquisition and will be one of the biggest dedicated bi-folding door manufacturing plants in the UK.
TWR will only manufacture bi-folding doors at the site and the new factory will be in addition to its long-standing headquarters and original factory in Sunderland.
Terry Richardson, who founded the company over ten years ago, comments: “We were one of the early adopters when it came to bi-folding doors and quickly established ourselves as a UK leading supplier.
“Year on year the order book has grown and we found ourselves in the privileged position of literally being inundated with orders, so we decided to scale up and take the leap of opening a second factory.”
Terry says that following the acquisition of the new factory, bending machinery has been ordered alongside hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of new machinery for the production of aluminium bi-folding doors.
It is all on course to be delivered in the middle of May, with the factory set to open in the summer.
Earlier this year TWR Bifolds also launched its new premium fast-track service that allows installers to achieve a three working day turnaround on aluminium bi-folding doors.
The new launch means that Terry Richardson and his team are able to offer RAL coloured aluminium bi-folds, on a three day lead time; subject to an order form being completed by the installer and a deposit paid.
It is being dubbed the fastest bi-fold turnaround the industry has seen and TWR Bifolds are the only suppliers in the industry to offer the service.
For its new premium service, TWR Bifolds can offer a three day lead time on any standard RAL colour and a six day lead time on any standard RAL dual-colour bi-folding door.
In 2014, TWR also invested heavily to be one of the first fabricators to open its own in-house powder coating facility – allowing it to offer coloured products at incredibly fast lead times.
Terry concludes: “The new factory represents the next quantum leap for TWR and is a major event. Bi-folding doors still represent a lucrative business opportunity for installers but they need to be careful not to work with companies that don’t have the knowledge and expertise required to fabricate aluminium – as it requires a completely different mind-set to PVC-u.”
