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Quietly does it...
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SDC is the number one trailer-maker in the UK at the moment. Yet right now, it's efficiency, not headlines, that is driving its management team.
Words: Brian Weatherley /images: The Gap Studio
BY HIS own admission, the managing director of SDC, Mark Cuskeran, believes the UK's number one trailermaker could be a bit better when it comes to publicity. "We're awful at PR," he confesses. He should be worried...
Plenty of higher-profile rivals have fallen by the wayside, and with the current economic climate. Cuskeran reckons there are other manufacturers waiting in the 'departure lounge'.
He says: -I've no doubt that there'll be more casualties...
His comments are echoed by business development manager Don Campbell, who suggests: "Not everyone is going to come through this alive."
With trailer-makers under more pressure than ever to put profits before PR, SDC has an enviable reputation for its assembly line acumen and its balance sheet.
"We're not in business to lose money," asserts Cuskeran. "Once a month we look at every trailer built on the line, so we know how many hours and what materials went into it. We know exactly if we've made the correct margin."
However, before readers run away with the idea that SDC's management spends all its time looking inwards, Cuskeran points out that the firm's fiscal microscope is frequently focused beyond the boundary fences of its Tootnebridge, County Antrim, and Mansfield sites.
"We look at everyone's accounts to see their best practice," he reveals. "We're not ashamed to take note of good ideas, it's the only way to learn how to do things better." Recent changes within the SDC management team include Paul Bratton being confirmed as UK sales director. His remit is to build upon the firm's success with larger fleets and develop SDC's sales operation. Bratton says: "With what's happened at Boalloy, we have an opportunity to talk with fleet operators and rental companies as well as our traditional customer base."
Time and motion The changes have also seen the arrival at Toomebridge of David 0' Neill as business improvement manager. He has the task of looking at all of the company's activities, not just the production line, and finding out where improvements can be made.
Cuskeran muses: "I'd hate to say we do 'time and motion' that's old British Leyland but we've measured the process so we can look at the moving line and get a consistency. It also removes the margins for errors."
Financial director Enda Cushnahan agrees: "We measure the time to fit a bracket! There's a lot of non-added value in any company, and we can always do things better."
SDC's focus on efficiency underpins its strong financial performance and also its claim to be market leader.
"Last year, we did 5,338 trailers, it was 5,050 in 2006. And our figures stack up with the axle guys and the likes of Gary Beecroft," says a bullish Cuskeran.
Indeed, trailer industry guru Beecroft, offers this assessment of SDC. "It's the only UK manufacturer in the top 10 of Western European trailer-makers building more than 5,000 a year.
"Although the Eastern European trailer-makers such as Kamaz/Nefaz in Russia and MAZ in Belarus are starting to make their mark and will push SDC down the table."
Beecroft likens SDC to: "A smaller version of Schmitz. It invests in the latest machinery and production tools, in addition to its efficiencies, it has good after-sales and support and spares. It's a complete package."
SDC has recently spent £5m on a new paint facility and made improvements to its moving line and wiring section at Toomebridge, again to improve product quality and remove wasted time. "With trailer manufacturing you're putting together a Meccano kit,insists Cuskeran. "What we're trying to do is work smarter. If you look at all the forklift trucks we have moving back and forth all day that's dead time in terms of material movements. I'd love to have no forklifts at all except for the one at the end that pulls the finished trailer out of the door. We want lean improvements it never ends."
So what can get in the way of the SDC masterplan? Campbell reckons: "If customers have no access to capital, that's what will get us rattled. People are holding fire for the moment, but it's got to ease up."
Cuskeran endorses that sentiment: "The cost of raising capital is critical. However, the market is the market, we've just got to deal with it.•