CR Taylor (Timber) Ltd, founded in 1960, took a major step forwards when Charles Taylor took his chance for expansion, buying a railway station and 12 acres of sidings at Denholme, near Bradford in 1967. This has provided the main infrastructure that allowed the business to get to where it is today, providing timber products throughout the north of England.
Since this time CR Taylor has also acquired another site in the centre of Bradford, to service the city centre business, leaving Denholme to concentrate on the core activities and new products.
Charles’ son Peter joined his father and now the third generation is playing an important part. As Peter, now chairman, has begun to take a less active role in the day-to-day business, key members of the management team have been given the chance to bring in a different style.
Recent changes have included a move from sales to managing director for Russell Tallant. It might seem daunting to be the first non-family member to take on this role, but Russell has been with the company for many years and clearly sees his new job as confirmation of the trust that has built up.
The Taylor dynasty still has an active involvement, with Katie and Charles as customer liaison manager and sales manager respectively.
The new team has been in place for only a few months, but some of the changes have been quite marked, such as instituting a purchasing department, headed by Graham Broadley, to give consistency and integration to this important function.
Building components
The current market for housebuilding and refurbishment is strong and with the huge resources available from the two sites, CR Taylor is well placed to take advantage of the situation. ‘Our main business is providing housebuilders with all the timber components required up to wall plate level, including barge boards, soffits and the ancillary components for roof bracing or conventional joists,’ said Mr Tallant. ‘Our customers need plot sets with the components clearly marked, so that the site teams can fix them in place as quickly as possible. We are also heavily involved in I-joists, sheet materials, MDF mouldings, doors, decking and any other mainstream softwood items. There’s a large trade centre here at Denholme to provide the local community with all of our range of products.’
Over 50 people work on the Denholme site, providing all of these products and the processing that ensures CR Taylor gives their customers accurate deliveries, to specification. Mr Tallant continued: ‘Apart from our stocks of carcassing and sheet materials, we have our own mill, producing PAR and second fix sections. We also have a grading line which gives us the flexibility to include everything from wet C16 to dry C24, in any section that the customer wants.’
CR Taylor was quick to catch on to the interest in I-beams. This has resulted in a new department, run by Paul Amphlett. He and his team produce beam schedules from drawings, including a laminated site sheet. The beams are then cut, marked and packaged with all of the relevant straps, hangers and fixings, so that they can be lifted onto site and spread out across the floor. This reduces site labour times dramatically, as well as giving all the other benefits that
I-beams can produce. ‘We’ve always used the Trus Joist Silent Floor system,’ said Mr Russell, ‘and like all new products, it took time to settle the systems down, including the handling and cutting of these huge sections, but now it is a refined system that we’re very used to and it’s working extremely well, with a good team in place’.
Grading line
The grading line gives CR Taylor a big advantage on flexibility, by bringing in sawn carcassing and then converting it as required. However, the most interesting points are that all joisting is planer regularised in the company’s mill and the main ethic on machined sections is to go for unsorted grade wherever possible.
‘We’ve tried all of the different tricks over the years,’ said Mr Tallant. ‘We know that our customers want good quality materials that they can fix with confidence. That’s why, particularly on second fix items, we go for high grades. It’s the same on sheet materials, where many others use lower grade hardwood plywoods, while we stick to BB/CC WBP Indonesian material, because our customers expect that sort of quality from us.’
The stock range is impressive and the depth in all the popular sections ensures that product availability is very high. As CR Taylor covers a wide geographical area, it also has to ensure that regional differences in sections and patterns are covered. As an example, spouting (treated softwood guttering section, usually ex 100×150) is commonly used in the area, so large stocks in two sections are machined and kept in the yard at all times. Sawn joinery is also popular with joiners and other merchants, which works well for the Denholme site, where the mill is always producing stock sections.
Timber decking has become an integral part of most timber merchants throughout Britain and CR Taylor is no exception. While most of the emphasis for this is through its trade centre, decking and all of the ancillary components now form a significant part of its sales.
Door range
As the customer base is heavily involved in internal carpentry, doors are also a major product and a wide range are kept in stock, giving customers a high level of availability for everything, from carcassing through to fixings and door furniture.
With this emphasis on softwoods, hardwoods take a back seat, as Mr Tallant explained: ‘We stick to what we’re best at and while we’re happy to source hardwood items for customers, we do not get involved in machining or rework, as in our opinion, this needs different tooling and handling.’
Timber preservative treatment has also become an integral part of the process and CR Taylor recognised that the ongoing investment needed was beyond the volume it required and it decided to source this locally. It is another interesting regional difference that the requirement for joist treatment appears to be much lower in the north than in the south of England, which reduces the opportunity for add on business.
While promotion via customer liaison and the sales department is vital, CR Taylor is also taking steps to advance the business. These include radio advertising, freephone sales line numbers, local football activities including sponsorship and site team participation and a website (www.taylortimber.co.uk). It also produces a newsletter for staff and customers, together with company profile booklets, which explain to customers, exactly what CR Taylor can provide.
The Denholme site is impressive, with a large percentage under cover, leaving storage and picking areas outside. Even here the amount of racking that is used soon makes it clear that yard organisation is taken seriously. ‘We continually invest in more racking,’ said Charles Taylor. ‘We’ve found that our demand for racking, to handle all of the new specialities, is constantly increasing.’
Handling equipment
Handling equipment is also vital and more than 12 sideloaders operate on site. ‘Again, with I-joists, other long length sections, such as German whitewood 300×300 and the increase in sheet materials, we have a growing need for forktrucks,’ said Mr Taylor.
In the I-joist section a whole shed area has been laid out specifically for selecting and cutting to order. As the original joists come in to the yard at around 12m, the layout is crucial and CR Taylor is fortunate to have the space to tackle these enormous sections. ‘The I-joist sections’ original area is starting to become outgrown and we’re encroaching on other product storage, which is a sign of the growth in this business,’ said Mr Taylor.
The grading line can cope with a wide range of sections, which gives good flexibility on joist options for the company’s customers. While any operation like this is labour intensive, the grading line can produce a very high volume in one day. With the added benefit of a planer regularising mill, this all creates a useful option for the business.
The main mill is organised to produce all of the stock sections and also create extra sales by cutting and machining specials. It is always difficult to mix the two processes in one mill, as there is a temptation to leave stock and concentrate on the urgent customer orders, so effective mill management is absolutely vital.
Another key facet of the business that ensures good service is a reliable delivery system. CR Taylor has a large fleet of vehicles which distributes across the north of England, using a mixture of flat bed vehicles, including crane offloaders, to cater for all the range of customer requirements.
