Purging plan sees UK manufacturer double turnover in three years

Manufacturer of purging compounds for the plastics industry, Aquapurge, has doubled its turnover in three years, with export sales increasing six-fold in the same period.

The Hayes, Middlesex-based company says the growth has been down to a new business focus implemented in 2015, which saw it limit sectoral R&D and concentrate on realising the sales potential of three of its core product lines.

Barrel Blitz Universal (BBU), PolyClear 100 and PolyClear HMEX all have stringent carbon cleaning properties to strip out all carbon black deposits from plastics machinery; rendering the production equipment as new. The company made the decision to promote these products not only in the UK, but in core geographical markets.

Following the recruitment of sales distributors in Italy, France, and Spain, the company has seen demand soar in these new territories, which, coupled with a strong domestic market has led it to relocate to bigger premises to satisfy demand.

John Steadman, Company Co-Founder and Technical Director, has been responsible from the outset for the continuing development of these products. 

"Today’s industry operates in a world where there are clear shortages of good technical people. In these conditions and in the absence of complex skill sets, companies are in clear need of simple, provable and cost-saving solutions,” he explained.

“The targeted application of purging compound material is such a solution. It provides a clear route to liberating machine time and improving quality.”

Aquapurge Co-Director, Richard Brayne-Nicholls, says that customer feedback has proven the products meet the key criteria for increasing efficiency and reducing downtime.

“For a very modest outlay, one of our Italian trade moulders let us know that they are saving hundreds of thousands of euros a year – in terms of increased machinery availability (OEE); reduced downtime; reduced machine refurbishment and strip downs not to mention expensive faulty mouldings, customer returns and reruns and so forth,” he explained.

Now the company is in its new, upgraded premises it intends to capitalise on the growth seen in the past three years. Further investments are also in the pipeline, including a new website to be launched in four languages and a new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system that will be able handle an increasingly global operation.

Benelux territories are currently being targeted for new sales people and an Aquapurge distributor is now appointed for Turkey. “We now have an international team of six employees and we plan to grow that to a total of nineteen within the next two years,” said Brayne-Nicholls.

Both Directors say they are targeting a 40 per cent annual sales growth in the coming years.