Mike Richardson visits epm:technology’s new Derby facility to discover how company director, Graham Mulholland, has turned his vision for the construction of a high-performance composites manufacturing powerbase into a reality. We’re standing in epm:technology’s brand new facility and I’m pitching owner, managing director and self-styled entrepreneur, Graham Mulholland, an idea for a new TV show along the same lines as Grand Designs, but for dream factories instead of dream homes. TV presenter Kevin McCloud might have prattled on about using composite materials to build one of Britain’s most ambitious projects to date, but hey, easy tiger! Let’s take one step at a time. In 1996, epm:technology took its first steps towards building a bigger, better, faster and smarter factory for a smart future in advanced composite component manufacturing that powerfully binds innovation with business sense. “The absolute starting point for this next chapter goes back pre-recession,” begins Mulholland. “We went into this period in a relatively strong position armed with a plan: to have a business that was fighting fit and when the world woke up, we were ready to go. We’d tackled the difficult challenges the industry faced, such as skills, competence, the large and complicated manufacturing projects others couldn’t do, and we made a niche for ourselves wherein customers would ask us to quote on components that were increasingly sharpening our blade of innovation. “However, we kept hitting this glass ceiling, which was the building we were in at the time. It didn’t matter how many times we painted it, or how many times the reception was re-carpeted, it was still the same building. We couldn’t get any more people in the car park, we couldn’t get customers onsite particularly well, and we couldn’t get lorries on and off site for some of the larger projects. Part of our desire in making a world class team meant having a world class facility in which to play in.” Mulholland says his analogy at this time was that if epm:technology was putting the fundamentals of people and equipment together, where could it find its ‘Wembley Stadium’ and how big would it need to be in order for the company to grow and prosper. “I made a scale model of an industrial estate and imagined how it would look if an F1 team was doing it, and how it would look if I was doing it. I got myself to a point where I knew what I wanted. I knew the layout, and actually had the nuts and bolts of our future on paper. We then prepared some CAD drawings of it and began actively looking to fund it and what that might entail. “At the time, the banks were unreceptive and we didn’t want to give up our equity. We didn’t want to simply modify our existing building; this was leading us on a path towards a brand new building that was going to come up out of the ground at some speed. We also contacted people that were willing to help us, like property developers and land agents. Out of the blue, Derby City Council made a big announcement about the availability of its enterprise growth fund, so we went for it. Ten months later, we’re in a 60,000ft2 purpose-built composite manufacturing facility, part of a £6.75 million investment in our future.” Faced with the opportunity to make investment decisions, Mulholland says his head was turned by a variety of temptations: should he have the biggest building money can buy and hold it all together, should he have a modest building with all the latest state-of-the-art production equipment, or something in between. “We’re now on a journey to reach £40 million in sales and employ 250+ people. Part of this process means ensuring we have a 15-year profile on every investment we make in a wide range of key capital equipment. “In moving out of our old location in Draycott, one option was to drag all the old equipment to the new facility and still have money left in the bank - or purchase brand new equipment. We opted for the latter. We have been building up to this over the past 15 years, so we were only ever going to do it properly.” In an industry known for high levels of manually intensive processes, was there another temptation during the move to ensure his new facility took maximum advantage of the latest automated production technology on offer? “We need to have people within epm that understand the clever bits about how we move our components around the various stages of production. We’ve spent a lot of time and money identifying the right people to join the business with this skillset. For example, BMW clearly understands how to make parts and automate them. We knew how to make the parts, but didn’t fully understand how to automate them. We’ve invested in automation and now have a 6-axis robot on site: an incredible step forward for any company to take. We’ve also hired a professor of robotics to join our robotics engineering team which comprises three graduate engineers with robotics experience. “We’re all guilty in this industry of saying where are the skills coming from? Here we are with a new facility; let’s try and do something about it. We have a designated meeting room for suppliers, a boardroom, and next door to this is a classroom. We’re now in a position where we can teach and take people on a journey within epm:technology. They can undertake composites-related NVQ 2 & 3 and HNC/HND qualifications onsite. Our mission is to make our employees the most skilled composites manufacturing army in the country.” Mulholland reveals that some time ago, an aerospace consultancy team visited epm’s old facility and told him that his company was “just an SME, and that a ‘cash rich’ big company would eventually take over in composites.” “I’ve never forgotten this,” he says. “We’re a composite manufacturing company and if anyone should be making composite parts for an aircraft, car, train or boat, it should be a composite company like us. Airbus doesn’t make its own wheels or engines, it buys them in. The UK supply chain has to acknowledge that it wasn’t there when OEM companies like Airbus needed it and we’re all now playing catch-up. This new facility is our statement of intent and is the first of three production facilities we will be rolling out. “We’ve invested in the future and I sit here today, confident as an entrepreneur, that we are ready for the next 15 years. It’s now our job to fill the building with work and look at opportunities for true partnerships, as well as the opportunities to build the next new building. We now know how to build a modern production facility, how to train our staff correctly, and how to gear ourselves up for the future. We have a proven track record. We’re not hoping we can hold it all together – we know we can hold it all together.” For now, Mulholland is building the dream by demonstrating through action, the words of his company’s tagline ‘the more momentum you build, the harder you are to stop’. All credit to his achievements – he’s not just a man of our time, but a man of the times yet to come. www.epmtechnology.com
