Walking on the vast shopfloor where thousands of Wadkin machines first started life, you cannot help but be struck by the heritage of the company. The Green Lane Road works, Leicester, has seen a myriad of machines made and repaired since it was built in the 1920s.

But the business now has a very different look from those early days. A period of turbulence last year saw Wadkin go into administration struggling under a £5m debt burden, resulting in about 170 redundancies.

A buy-in management buyout two months later put the business under new ownership, with new financing and a more aggressive vision for the future. The old Wadkin was split into two – Wadkin Ultracare, focusing on the after-sales, servicing, tooling and spare parts; and Wadkin Manufacturing, making the Classical range of machinery and grinders together with other toolroom equipment and the five-head GD moulder.

The buyout was led by Peter Smith, a former consultant to Wadkin (Holdings) Ltd, together with Nigel Smith (no relation), a director of the original Wadkin group, and brothers Francis and Nigel Dalton, the owners of Nottingham-based AL Dalton Ltd, a distributor of Wadkin machinery for more than 40 years.

The lion’s share of the new business, as shown by the first audited accounts, is now focused on the after-sales operation. Peter Smith says the manufacturing arm is important but emphasises that it is unlikely to go into the mass production market again.

It was competition from the likes of SCM and Weinig from the 1970s and 1980s onwards, coupled with a strong pound, that contributed to the demise in profitability of the old Wadkin’s large machine building operation.

Nigel Smith said: “Up until 25 years ago Wadkin was like Hoover. If you needed woodworking machinery you said ‘I need a Wadkin’.”

The Wadkin heyday of the 1950s and 1960s, when an estimated 2,000 people worked for the company, has given way to a highly competitive and almost totally foreign produced, machine manufacturing industry.

So, how are things going?

Audited accounts for the 10 months to December 31, 2001 show operating profits of more than £500,000 for Wadkin UltraCare, and more than £100,000 for Wadkin Manufacturing. This has exceeded all expectations.

Peter Smith reports that Wadkin UltraCare’s primary objective of creating the UK’s largest national service and maintenance organisation in the machine tool and allied industries “has been established”. As the first step towards this goal, significant progress has been made in being at the forefront of servicing the woodworking industry.

“The maintenance industry remains fragmented, with only a few large suppliers competing in markets worth in excess of £100m in annual revenues,” he says.

Two of the big coups for Wadkin UltraCare so far are winning the service contracts for Travis Perkins and Wolseley Centres (incorporating the Builder and Timber Centre chains).

“They want a one-stop shop,” says Peter Smith. “We now have a contract from two of the largest timber suppliers in the country to carry out the servicing of their machines at all their branches.”

&#8220Up until 25 years ago Wadkin was like Hoover. If you needed woodworking machinery you said ‘I need a Wadkin’”

Nigel Smith, Wadkin Ultracare

The company is talking to other big industry names about similar servicing deals, while it is also part of a consortium negotiating a supply contract for the Ministry of Defence for support services and servicing of machine tools. A deal with significant potential, it would involve being an on-site rather than a mobile maintenance contractor.

Wadkin will service any make of machine, not just its own brand, and the potential is enormous, with cutting machines used in all sorts of applications from plastics, metals, aerospace, to the high street, DIY sheds (panel and wall saws) and key cutting machines.

Nigel Smith added: “The company has new owners, new funding, a new strategy and a new future. We are rebuilding a machine on the shop floor which was built in 1946 and supplying spare parts for machines that are older than me. That’s the legacy of generations of people.

“We reckon there are between 50,000-100,000 Wadkin machines still operating in the UK and built prior to 1995, which will need to be updated to meet the latest health and safety regulations. There are probably another 50,000 around the world and all these machines also have to be maintained.”

Wadkin UltraCare also supplies grinders, measuring stands and template makers and is proving successful in the supply of factory rebuilt machinery, with Travis Perkins and Montague L Meyer Ltd among recent customers.

The company has also invested in a new fleet of 26 vehicles for its team of service engineers and spare parts staff, and continues to upgrade its IT facilities.

On the manufacturing front things are also looking up.

AL Dalton, the sole UK distributor of Wadkin Classical machines whose directors are equity partners in the new manufacturing operation, is understandably happy that production has been secured for the future.

Francis Dalton, whose association with Wadkin goes back 40 years, says about 24 models, including four-sided planing machines, routers, spindle moulders, tenoners, cross-cuts, morticers, panel saws, bandsaws and planer moulders are being made. Improvements in cost efficiencies and production methods, he says, are helping to further Wadkin’s name as a “manufacturer of quality machines sold at a fair price”.

He said: “We are a significant force in the industry again. It’s been quite remarkable the speed at which it has happened.

“We actually managed to keep order books full in the period between the old Wadkin and the new Wadkin. I do not think we lost a single order during that period. People still respect Wadkin, it shows how strong the brand is.”

Peter Smith added: “Manufacturing is a very important part of the business and will remain so for a very long time because of the credibility that Wadkin has got.”

He strongly believes Wadkin machines last longer and hold their tolerances longer than others, citing the preference for Wadkin moulders among South-east Asian hardwood processors as an example. A version of the GD moulder has been developed specifically for this market, with two already despatched and more being built.

Interest in the machinery has also been generated by recent service tours to Ireland, Italy and France.

&#8220Wadkin is a significant force in the industry again. It’s been quite remarkable the speed at which it has happened ”

Francis Dalton, of Wadkin distributors AL Dalton Ltd

“If a customer wants a specific type of machine and is prepared to pay the price we will build it,” says Peter Smith.

But, even more than a year on, there remains some misconception in the industry about the status of Wadkin, with some people apparently still under the impression it is no longer operating.

“We are still getting calls from people saying ‘are you still there?’,” says Peter Smith.

Nigel Smith says that while public relations will be used to address this problem, the simplest solution will be to keep on supplying the highest standards of engineering and service.

“We will continue to confound our critics, which is what we have been doing for more than 12 months, by first of all surviving the weeks after receivership, paying all of our suppliers in time, beating all previous records for ‘available ex-stock’ and now cautiously reintroducing high quality moulders.”

But the Green Lane Road works will not form part of the future. Plans are in hand to move to a new site within the next 12 months.

Nigel Smith says the current site is “too old” and “too big”, with much of the present 6.7 acres no longer used. The company is looking for a smaller, better designed facility of about 40,000ft2 to make the whole operation more efficient.

The current workforce is 106, a far cry from the old Wadkin, but an increase of 10 since the buyout.

And the future? New developments include the introduction of an upgrade system for the exiting Wadkin template maker, a new model and a table-top grinder to provide a more cost-effective solution for some customers.

Also, a high specification HT6 Delta moulder and Visage Plus grinder will be on display at the International Woodworking Machinery & Furniture Supply Fair (IWF 2002) in Atlanta on August 22-25.

And, of course, the name of Wadkin will once again be represented at Woodmex in November.