Over 100 new jobs created after top engineering firm relocates to TeesAMP
26.10.21
Story credit: Teesside Live (Tuesday 26 October 2021)
A world-leading steel engineering company’s decision to move to a new Teesside business park has created 100 jobs.
The choice of the award-winning TeesAMP has also helped Firth Vickers Engineering’s parent company – Paralloy Limited – achieve a turnover of more than £60m.
Firth Vickers Engineering was a new company established last year after the purchase of the aerospace division of Tyneside-based Express Engineering.
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Chief executive Robert McGowan said he was looking to relocate the operation closer to Paralloy’s stainless and nickel alloy foundry in Billingham.
“We looked within a 20 miles radius and we were struggling to find something that was a good match for our needs and would allow us the opportunity to expand,” he said.
“Some of the other facilities were tired and would have needed money just to make them suitable.
“TeesAMP was far and away the most suitable. It’s close to our main site, there’s excellent road communication and the image of the park is just right for us.”
The move also received financial support from Middlesbrough Council – one of the partners behind the TeesAMP project – and the company invested around £4m in equipment and the fit out of its three buildings.
There was space to expand as demand for its services increased and there is still capacity for further growth.
Paralloy and Firth Vickers’ customers include some of the biggest names in the aerospace, naval marine, petro-chemical and industrial gas turbine industries: Air Products, Air Liquide, Siemens, Rolls Royce, Exxon, Sabic, GE.
It is currently working on a major contract to manufacture and supply steel pipes used in the production of blue hydrogen, where the pipes have to withstand 960 degrees Celsius throughout their lifetime.
Paralloy and Firth Vickers operate in a global market and are the only business of its kind in the UK able to provide its customers with turnkey components and assemblies. Raw materials arrive at Billingham where they are cast, machined and prepared.
They are then transported a short distance to TeesAMP where teams of engineers work on the parts and assemblies, finishing them to high precision tolerances and standards.
“We go from base metal right the way through to a high precision finished product,” said the company’s general manager David Sibson.
“That’s beneficial to the customer in so many ways, including shortening its supply chain and lead times.”
Paralloy and Firth Vickers’ success has seen 100 staff taken on at TeesAMP and Billingham in less than 18 months.
Mr Sibson anticipates recruiting 20 further employees for Middlesbrough and plans to launch an apprenticeship programme.
He said that the unique nature of the services offered by the business, as well as the quality of his staff and surroundings, makes him highly optimistic about the future.
“We’re expanding in this industry, so we wanted to make a statement and this business park allows us to do that,” he said.
Even though construction work did not start until 2019 – and despite the pandemic – 21 out of TeesAMP’s 22 buildings are now occupied.
Around 1,000 people work there. The last available unit has a floor space of 26,000 sq ft and is in a prime location near the front of the site.
Story credit: Teesside Live (Tuesday 26 October 2021)
