A JUGGLING ACT ...

Operating a business can be a juggling act in more ways than one. With a tightening economy, energy supply uncertainties, and escalating input costs, managing the ‘balls in the air’ has become an even more demanding task.

At Heat Treatments the impact of all these factors has certainly been felt. The strength of the dollar has assisted us in offsetting some imported material cost increases and enabled us to renew plant from overseas, however teh significant cost of payroll and energy have risen sharply.

The cost of energy has risen over 30% and as the majority of our process energy is electricity, with only a small part being natural gas, cost stability and security of supply is vital. Having had a wet winter it would seem that supply may be in good shape in the short term, however the recent interruptions of supply, certainly don’t allow peace of mind.

In response to all these external factors we have continued investment in both plant (more efficient processes) and technology. This stance has served the company well in the past and has enabled us to provide our customers with significant price stability whilst also giving them the benefits of the improved technology. However it must be said that if costs continue to rise as they are we will have to review the sustainability of this approach and our ability to continue to contain price pressures in the medium-term.

At this point however we will continue to ‘juggle the balls’ as best we can and support our customers in doing the same.

In this issue we talk with a highly innovative company WhisperGen™ – who is making waves in the European energy market. Adam Walmsley gives us the low down on aluminium alloys and John Baird from the Machine Shop explains the relationship between cost, surface roughness and dimensional tolerances. We introduce a new member of the team Jamie Edwards and Steve Askew brings you recent system advancements, a quality update and a significant Health and Safety achievement.

Fergus Thomson

General Manager