Altrad Belle
was a big shock. We now pay the workforce their hours every month but if we are out of season, we can cut those hours and bank them for use during busy periods.
“Before we were paying overtime when we were busy and laying people off when we were quiet. Annualised hours have made us much more efficient because we retain those skills now, there is no longer a cycle of employment and lay-offs unless we see a stepped changed in the market beyond the added tolerance that annualised hours provides. Before, only a third of those we recruited were with us for more than 12 months. It made any sort of long-term training strategy very difficult. Our employees tend to like the system as in the quieter periods they might be only working three-day weeks but getting the same pay each month.
“Amicable relationships with the workforce are very important and they’ve enabled us to become more flexible. The old attitude of ‘I only build plate compactors’ has gone, the workforce is very much in tune with the philosophy of being multi-skilled to work on different product lines or processes. That type of cross-training is very important for UK companies to continue to be competitive. It gives us the opportunity to upskill those workers and retain those skills.
“We also needed to be a lot more flexible, which meant upskilling the production teams so they could quickly move from one product line to another. You need all of these measures if you want to compete internationally.
“There was some push back, but I got them all together, showed them our competitors’ machines, and said, ‘we can either let them take us out, or we can change and take them on’. And those challenges don’t go away, we must keep changing and adapting.”
The company consolidated five UK locations into a single site to create efficiencies of scale and provide much greater flexibility for reacting to customers’ requirements – and for sharing best practice in R&D.
Product rationalisation led to the demise of surface preparation machines, generators and skid steer loaders as the company focused on its core competencies. This proved to be the right move as Belle Group continued to grow, both in the UK and
abroad. In 2008, it was rewarded the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise in International Trade.
Continued investment France-based Altrad Group purchased Belle Group in 2009, adding wheelbarrows and scaffolding to the UK product range, and with it the trading name changed to Altrad Belle. Since then, the company has reintroduced generators plus 1t high-tip dumpers, pressure washers, and bowser pressure to its portfolio. “The biggest change has been the expansion of our product range, we have a lot more strings to our bow now,” says Daniel Pinder, area sales manager.
The dumper market is one of the most competitive plant segments, but the company is doing its best to stand out from the crowd. Its DX 1000HT dumper features twin lock hydraulic 4WD for dealing with deep mud. “We have a lot of hydraulics expertise within the business which gave us a real head start in terms of product design and development,” says Pinder. “It will power through deep mud, I have seen it go through sludge up to the top of its wheel rim, which is pretty impressive.”
The dumper is produced at the company’s factory in Sheen, Derbyshire, alongside its new battery powered mixer which was unveiled at the Executive Hire Show. “We have just shipped the first electric mixers,” says Pinder. “The initial feedback is terrific and both from end users who traditionally used petrol and electric mixers.”
Almost every part of the manufacturing process is done in-house which Neilson
believes is part of Altrad Belle’s competitive advantage. “If you are a British manufacturer but you are not innovating, you are in trouble,” he says. “R&D is very important, as our industry doesn’t stand still for long.
“The hire industry now moves very, very fast. I can phone a national rental hire company on a Friday and they could tell me they are fine for plate compactors, then they can ring me back on the Monday and say they need 1,500 of them. A hire company might not order from you for years then call up out of the blue with a big order like that. If you can’t help them, they’re not going to be coming back to you for a few more years when they need to replace that equipment.”
This is backed by a commitment to invest in the latest technology for the plant. “We have been installing more technology in the factory including a hydrogen generating plant and a new 10kW fibre laser cutter. It cuts up to eight times faster than our previous cutter. Our dumper trucks are fully robot welded now, as are most of the products from Altrad Belle.
“We have the flexibility and the local market advantage to meet the UK hire market’s needs, but we have to remain efficient and that is a constant process. You never stop looking for efficiency gains.” n
Machinery comes together on the Altrad Belle production line, and the company is committed to investing in the latest technology for the factory.
September 2023 - Executive Hire News 15
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