EDITOUR PETplanet Insider Vol. 23 No. 06/22 www.petpla.net 20 Surfing the pandemic wave by Ruari McCallion R&D/Leverage survived the Covid-19 pandemic and even prospered, with a record surge in sales of its injection stretch blow moulding tooling and no Covid-related shutdown of its factory or offices. It had the foresight to buy an adjacent factory unit when it came available, in 2020, in order to be prepared for the future. Equipment was being moved in on the very day that Ruari McCallion, PETplanet Insider Editor-at-Large, visited the facility near Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, and renewed his acquaintance with MD Alan Tolley and the company staff. Interview with R&D/Leverage UK March 02, 2022 We met: Mr Alan Tolley, Managing Director Mr Bob Schiavone, Global Marketing Director (by phone) Mr Craig Carrington, Sales Manager It’s always a pleasure to visit Alan Tolley (photo above) and the R&D/Leverage team. They are welcoming and hospitable and there is always some interesting news to discuss. It has been four years since we were last at the company’s UK facility in Sutton-inAshfield, near Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. It was impossible to miss a unit sporting obviously new R&D/Leverage signage and with a big truck backed up to it. “The unit came up for sale in 2020”, said Alan Tolley, managing director of R&D/Leverage in the UK. “We invested it to future-proof the company. We knew we would need more space, fairly soon, and we didn’t want to go looking for another complete site, or another factory a few miles away. It extends to about 12,500 square feet (1,160m2) and takes our total area now up to 60,000 square feet (5,600m2), including mezzanine and offices. We’re just putting in equipment now. That’s what the truck is here for.” Investment is essential Investment is an ongoing theme at R&D/Leverage. My first visit, eight years ago, was for the official opening of its Product Solutions Laboratory (PSL), which is equipped with the latest equipment, such as its customer base uses, and enables the company to offer them a one-stop shop for all aspects of design, prototyping, testing and initial runs. It was transformational; there is still possibly nothing else like it in the world – at least, nothing else offered by a toolmaking company. The investment has allowed R&D to service its customers even better than before, with two or three customer companies visiting every week, until the Covid-19 pandemic and all its restrictions on travel. The last two years have seen only three visits in total but that hadn’t stopped the company’s relentless progress. It had a bumper year in 2020 and didn’t lose a single day through enforced shutdown. “In February 2020, we started get a lot of orders and it went manic in the next few months. We had two times the expected level of orders in March and April, about the same in May and three times normal in June,” Alan said. “The demand was for sanitisers, disinfectant, liquid soap dispensers and all that but primarily for sanitiser dispensers. Overall, orders in 2020 were 45% higher than in 2019. Now, that was exceptional and we didn’t expect it to be repeated in 2021. But that was a good year too; we were about 11% up on 2019.” Covid-19: no down days Key to the successful navigation of the pandemic was the fact that R&D/ Leverage UK didn’t have any down days, unlike competitors overseas, who shut down for months at a time. European sales fell, by about 10% but that was more than offset by sales to the Rest of the World, which more than doubled and even exceeded UK numbers. Europe remains the company’s biggest market. Tour Sponsors:
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