Summary
• Performance Doorset Solutions was established in 2003.
• Turnover has risen from £793,000 to £8.4m.
• The company now produces stairs and windows as well as doorsets.
• It supplies the social and private housing sectors.

When Tim Fairley, Ian Cavanagh and Paul Goggins left Dale Joinery in 2003 to establish their own doorset manufacturing business, they couldn’t have timed the move better. The government was pushing to raise the standard of social housing, so there was a ready market for quality products.

“Dale didn’t particularly see a future in that market [doorsets] so, as ever, we thought, we can go and do better,” said Mr Fairley.

And they’ve been proved right. In the first year, Performance Doorset Solutions (PDS), based in Littleborough, Lancashire, turned over £793,000, more than doubling to £1.9m in the second year, and the current financial year is expected to top £8.4m.

The company started with a timber doorset and the three men quickly realised there was a market for a fibreglass product as well. “There were quite a few people doing one or the other but it was unusual to be doing both, which gave us an edge,” said Mr Fairley.

Today the company employs 90 people, produces 300 doorsets a week and has expanded its distribution from the initial 30-mile radius of Rochdale to pretty much the whole of Britain.

Product range

The product range has also been extended to include fully factory finished timber windows, and made to measure joinery, and in January this year PDS bought City Joinery, a Rochdale company which had also been set up by former Dale employees.

“We’ve graduated into products we knew at Dale Joinery; it was a natural progression,” said Mr Fairley.

Two years ago PDS moved into a 27,000ft² purpose-built factory and this was supplemented in September by a 13,500ft² factory dedicated to made to measure joinery. A second paint line has also been added and, among the 42 machines, an additional CNC router takes the tally to four.

While doorsets, including Secured by Design (SBD), PAS23 and PAS24 high performance and FD30 and FD60 fire doorsets and an EcoHomes-compliant doorset, still make up the majority of PDS’s business, Mr Fairley expects the proportion of windows and other joinery to increase over the next 12 months.

Diversification

The diversification has widened PDS’s customer base and provided a sturdier buffer in the current economy.

“If we had only one product line it would only need a few customers to go quiet and we’d be struggling. At least now if it goes quiet on doorsets the guys can glaze windows in another part of the factory,” said Mr Fairley.

At the moment, however, PDS is anything but quiet – in fact, business is 48% up on last year. While the company has not felt the brunt of the economic downturn yet, Mr Fairley and his colleagues are bracing themselves for “a tough six to eight months”, although activity in the social housing market should continue to bring in business. The majority of PDS’s products are now supplied through timber and builders merchants and, although they are facing tough times, Mr Fairley believes they are a reliable market. “It’s definitely a growth area,” he said.

Laminated timber

Another thing keeping the company busy is product development. PDS has just taken delivery of its first consignment of laminated FSC-certified softwood, part of the company’s plan to phase out the use of sapele, except for specific requirements.

PDS has already been making door frames from laminated timber and Mr Fairley believes the move will make the timber windows even more appealing. “You get no bleed or yellowing of knots, the paint then is a better finish and it’s a more stable product. It will make a big difference,” he said.

Low energy windows are also high on the agenda and PDS is working on lowering the already impressive 1.2W/m2K U-value of its windows, and is having calculations done on a triple-glazed window. Many of its windows are supplied for residential refurbishment but it is also seeking SBD accreditation for some windows, which will appeal to the social housing sector.

With the three founders actively involved, and experienced staff – many of them also ex-Dale Joinery – Mr Fairley believes that PDS has “more technical knowledge than anyone else in the industry”, giving it the ability to respond quickly to customers’ needs.

“Diversification is what we’re about and it’s what sets us apart,” said Mr Fairley. “If you come to us and say you want 20 windows the same size or 20 windows with bespoke sizes, either way it really doesn’t matter to us.”