Fife-based, Haldane (UK) Ltd, a specialist in bespoke handrails, staircases and stair components, was on the front foot in the lead up to the Covid-19 crisis in the UK.
On March 17 it alerted its customers to potential supply issues if the situation worsened and travel restrictions were imposed. It had already purchased additional timber stocks in light of the situation and said it was still able to “facilitate existing contracts at current market prices”. It encouraged customers to place an order quickly even if a contract wasn’t due on site for a couple of months in order to secure timber and avoid price increases.
Just a few days later – and in common with the majority of construction-related businesses in the UK – Haldane responded to government guidelines and from March 24 temporarily ceased manufacturing operations as well as all onsite activities, including surveys and installations.
Fast forward to May 26 and Haldane was asked to bring back a core team of operators and support staff to facilitate an order placed prior to lockdown, which was now critical for a major customer who was contracted to supply an NHS mental health hospital. Since then, more employees have been brought back into service, with the full complement expected to be back in the saddle by August 1.
The biggest challenge for the returnees is that many of Haldane’s projects are in London – a long way from home.
“We are working on a prestigious development in London comprising luxury apartments, penthouses and town houses,” said Forrester Adam, Haldane (UK)’s managing director.
“We had completed our work on the first 13 houses and there was just the French polishing to be done but when the pandemic struck everyone was sent home. England started up sooner than Scotland so the developer was phoning us up and pleading with us to come down and start work again.
The problem was we couldn’t find any accommodation for our guys because all the hotels were closed.”
Eventually accommodation was found and Haldane has had two installation teams working on projects in London. “In some of the projects we’re the only ones on site,” said Mr Adam.
Looking ahead, he thinks the biggest challenge will be keeping to social distancing guidelines on site but he has a tried and tested solution up his sleeve, which is for Haldane’s installers to work the night shift, thus avoiding other trades.
Back at the manufacturing site, everything is being done to keep staff safe – and it’s helped by the fact that the factory occupies 26,000ft2, “which is about 1,000ft2 per person”.
There is a one-way system in place and yellow dots at 2m intervals “so if anyone stops to talk to anyone else, they have to be standing on a yellow dot”. Plenty of hand sanitizer is available and employees have been issued with their own gloves and, where necessary, face masks.
Clear screens forming mini-cubicles around the office staff are in place and the office space itself has also been re-jigged.
The production team has moved out of the main office and into what was formerly a boardroom in the factory.
“It has worked out really well,” said Mr Adam. “We have stopped a lot of movement about the factory, reducing that by looking at better ways of doing the work. It has actually made us more efficient.”
As well as ensuring the factory was shipshape, the company saw to it that its furloughed staff kept engaged by sending them training tasks centred on safe working practices. One employee has also been able to train to be a forklift driver.
And Mr Adam phones each member of staff at the beginning of each week to make sure everyone is ok and emails them every Friday to update them on company news.
Business was booming for Haldane prior to lockdown, said Mr Adam.
“We were picking up some really good work and it was going through like billy-o,” he said, adding that one contract would have seen some lucky Haldane installers heading to the Caribbean.
“We were in the throes of the final negotiations of a staircase in Barbados. We’re still talking to the customer about it but with the travel restrictions it’s on hold at the moment.”
He attributes Haldane’s success in the joinery market to its investment in technology. Not only does this enhance production for its own projects, it also opens up the field for contract manufacturing.
The company now has four 5-axis CNCs (two Heian and two Maka) and one Heian 3-axis CNC.
“I think people are coming to us for contract manufacturing because we took a leap a few years ago and really started investing in the company and stopped relying on standardisation,” said Mr Adam. “In 2017 we had a bespoke CNC made for us that encapsulated all the technical improvements we had made over the last 20 years.
“It has improved accuracy; it is quicker at putting stuff through and you can put more components together in one pass. It was a £300,000 investment and it was so good we bought another one in 2019.”
Last year the company added an £80,000 state-of-the-art scanner to its tool box. The Creaform Professional Metrology Grade handheld 3D scanner comes with full calibration certification to verify the accuracy of its 14 lasers, which can measure to an accuracy of 30 microns – three times the accuracy of most other scanners.
Haldane has set up its own in-house survey team and uses this scanner to measure and capture data that can then be exactly replicated at the factory.
The company specialises in the luxury and “the quirky” projects, newbuild and refurbishment and expects most of the future growth – in the near term, at least – to come from contract manufacturing.
“Customers are coming to us because they are finding it more difficult to import,” said Mr Adam. “We’ve had a few calls already from people wanting to get products made in the UK now, including garden furniture.
One company used to source pergolas from China and has asked us if we could do the machining if they get the timber to us.
“We’re looking at growth in areas we’re not normally associated with,” he added.
One product Haldane is firmly associated with is staircases and demand for these has “gone through the roof”.
“We just picked up an order for a £70,000, nine-flight staircase for a mansion house in London. It’s a turnkey-type development where we will measure, build the staircase, organise any metalwork or glass that’s involved, fit the handrail and French polish – a one-stop shop.”
Another big uplift in demand has been for timber columns. Haldane supplied the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent with 80 columns masquerading as lighthouses but now finds that the luxury end of the residential market is ordering them for wooden pillars for a porch or for statement features in a ballroom.
“Our ability to turn solid timber columns and pilasters to a maximum of 1900mm in length and up to 500mm in diameter is unrivalled in the industry,” said Mr Adam.
“This length represents the maximum length of an individual column section; however, this can be increased by joining sections or when complemented with collars and end blocks.”
As well as smooth columns, the company can also create roped and fluted designs – and longer lengths can also be achieved, although these tend to be machined as hollow timber columns to clad structural steel columns.
Accoya has proven to be an ideal timber for columns but in terms of trends in species for the wider portfolio of work, black walnut is in vogue, while European oak remains a mainstay.
However, the trend, according to Mr Adam, is for stained timber, including on handrails, where customers appreciate being able to see the woodgrain.
“I think this is being driven by the number of different engineered hardwood flooring options that are available now. People are buying into the idea of different colours and stains and they want the handrail to match.”
Another trend, he said, is for “wrapped” handrails – and the wrapping can be anything from leather to velvet.
“The products covering the handrail cost a fortune so the material underneath has to be stable and accurate because any flaw would be visible,” said Mr Adam. “But if it wasn’t challenging, anybody could do it.”
