Spillard Safety Systems has invested more than £200,000 into a new headquarters – treble the size of its former site – prompting a major recruitment drive as the manufacturer prepares for an increase in work.
The company, which supplies safety equipment for the commercial vehicle, construction, HS2, plant and quarry sectors, has moved into a 28,500 sq ft facility and is looking to employ a further 12 engineers and three apprentices.
Its new ‘Safety Hub’ in Four Ashes, in South Staffordshire, has more warehousing space, a dedicated R&D unit for product development, a new training school and an eight-bay commercial vehicle workshop that will cater for a 30 per cent increase in installs scheduled for this year.
Managing Director Pete Spillard said: “Our new HQ was something we had been planning for two years and, when the opportunity came to purchase the building opposite our previous base, it was too good to turn down.
“We stripped the building back to its shell and then set about designing it exactly how we wanted it, with a dedicated sales office, larger assembly space, more room for R&D and then the expansive workshop area that means we can do more installs and more demonstrations of our technology.”
He added: “Importantly, we have also invested in creating a new training school that has space for 20 people to learn a combination of theory and then hands-on practical workshop experience.
“This is critical for developing the next generation of engineers and, potentially, in training up staff from our customers.”
Spillard Safety Systems was founded in 1992 to promote awareness of and improve the safety of, mobile plant and is now one of the UK’s largest vehicle safety equipment suppliers to the construction, extraction, aggregate and transportation industries.
The firm, which employs 64 people, has built on a record year in 2022 when sales hit £8.6 million by increasing sales by a further 25 per cent.
Growth has been largely driven by the roll-out of two new breakthrough technologies – an AI Human Detection System (HDS) and cloud-based platform Spillard Live – that will reduce accidents and fatalities, as well as delivering improved operational performance.
Finance Director Craig Spillard said the new training school will be a “gamechanger”.
He said: “I’m really excited about our training school, which we believe will be the best in our industry.
“There is a mix of classroom and workshop space to train our apprentices and upskill engineers who may be joining us as part of our recruitment drive. Importantly, we are also looking at developing a programme where we can educate and teach staff from our customers to install our HDS and ‘Spillard’ Live systems.
“We feel this will be a gamechanger. Demand from clients in all the sectors we operate in is outstripping our ability to get out on site and service them, so if we can get their vehicles here and show them how to do it, we can speed up implementation by 50 per cent.”
