PRODUCTS & EQUIPMENT
Bespoke Stairlifts make life easier with BLM
H
uddersfield-based Bespoke Stairlifts was created by business partners Dave Burns
and Gavin Finn with the sole aim of providing a cost-effective solution for people with limited mobility, but who also lived in properties
with curved or complicated staircases. Existing suppliers focussed on straight staircases, with maybe a 90 degree turn at the top, at most.
Not being from manufacturing backgrounds their solution to this problem was to refabricate second
The installation of the BLM ELECT 80 was a steep learning curve, but operator Ben Heneghan was up for the challenge.
10 IMT June 2015
hand stairlifts to create a bespoke solution for every installation. Initially it targeted customers through its dealer network in the UK, but when the financial crisis hit the challenge was to open up Europe for potential business. This it did with amazing success. So much so that, in a way, it became a victim of its own success and the task of finding used stairlifts to refabricate. Therefore, the obvious solution was to develop its own brand new stairlifts and begin manufacturing from scratch. One of the obstacles in the way of this development was the lack of manufacturing experience at Bespoke Stairlifts, especially when it came to tube bending for the rails on which the stairlift operates. “When it comes to re-engineering existing stairlifts we have no problem, as we have gained masses of experience over the 11 years that we have been in business. But out and out manufacture was something completely new to us, so we knew we would need
www.internationalmetaltube.com
Simon Waddington at the control of the BLM ELECT making use of the programming and VGP3D software.
to work with suppliers that were willing, and capable of helping us along the way. This meant that we looked at a number of potential suppliers for our tube bending requirement, but everything kept bringing us back to BLM and its ELECT 80 Tube bending system, which we felt suited our needs perfectly,” says Simon Waddington, Bespoke Stairlift’s Director of Product Development.
Bespoke Stairlift’s requirement was also unusual in the fact that they have a typical batch size of one-off, as every stairlift has a different configuration. This meant that whatever tube bending system they chose, it had to have a control system that would allow them, as ‘novices’, to be able to quickly master the process of programming and setting the machine.
Further complicating the
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