ANOTHER STOP AT WILLERBY
SINCE WE LAST TALKED WITH WILLERBY HOLIDAY HOMES THEY’VE HAD AN INTERESTING AND EVENTFUL YEAR.
This time last year we had a fascinating talk with Willerby Holiday Homes, the largest static caravan manufacturer in the UK. Of course, it’s been a pretty eventful year.
“
It’s been a very good year but also a strange year,” says Peter Munk, CEO of the company.
“The weather’s had a big impact, from the Beast of the East to the hottest weather on record, so that impacts the business. But we’re really focusing on the things we can influence to drive the business forward.”
For Willerby this has taken the form of two big changes in the business. The first of these is a complete reassessment of how it handles its supply chain.
“WE’RE REALLY FOCUSING ON THE THINGS WE CAN INFLUENCE TO DRIVE THE BUSINESS FORWARD”
“When we talked last time we were really starting to look at components for our business and in many instances we were single-source, which poses a risk to the business and doesn’t always drive innovation and cost competitiveness,” Munk explains.
our units is something they will have in their own homes. Being aligned with companies like that is excellent for our business.”
Beyond the plumbing side of the business, Willerby has also been reassessing how they source their windows.
“We were single source on windows and thought that was risky because we work on a justin-time basis. We looked at the market and felt we needed the different qualities of windows for different cost brackets of holiday homes,” Munk says. “We’ve now qualified three different suppliers for our windows giving us flexibility in production in terms of providing a more domestic style window into the static caravan market.”
Of course, it’s always challenging starting a new relationship with a supplier from scratch, but it has also brought useful new capabilities to the company.
WILLERBY
Willerby CEO Peter Munk
“So back in October 2018 we insourced all plumbing and heating and sanitary activities that had previously been outsourced. That was to give us a more diverse supply and put us in direct control of the specifications and what was going into our products and enable us to deliver consumer driven features into our units. We’ve been working together with the Vaillant Group, a leading boiler manufacturer in the UK and very high on the Which?
List. It gives our consumers the confidence that comes from knowing that what we have in
“We’ve been forming big project teams around cross functional projects, with educated project managers to help us,” Munk tells us.
“This is not just sourcing, it’s product management, production, health and safety. We’ve invested in different equipment. We’re really working with the suppliers.”
Sometimes this has meant working with companies that aren’t necessarily familiar with the holiday homes sector.
“One of the suppliers was completely new to our industry and was not used to delivering to an industrial operation like ours, and getting things to the production line at the right time and at the right quality,” Munk
Holiday Homes
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recalls. “So we spent quite a lot of time helping them really understand the requirements and work on the existing spec. Our people regularly go to their facilities to help them comply with our expectations rather than what they’ve been used to before. That’s been a good learning process for both parties.”
A NEW BUSINESS
While their overhaul of the supply chain has been a major development for Willerby, it’s been far from their only one. While modular housing has always been a key part of Willerby’s business
“WE FELT LIKE IF WE WERE COMING IN AS NEW ENTRANTS WE NEEDED TO BRING SOMETHING NEW DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION-WISE FOR THE CONSUMER”
model historically, and was something we talked about last year, it’s yet to take off in the way Munk is expecting.
“We felt like if we were coming in as new entrants we needed to bring something new design and construction-wise for the consumer,” Munk points out.
“We developed an adjacent business, specialising in residential park homes. We’ve started a separate business unit with its own factory and its own team to really start up this business and develop it” “because what we do in the core business is mass customisation, while the other business is completely bespoke. You start from a standard home but then you can move walls, windows, in fact anything in the unit, which is a completely different philosophy. We wanted to ensure that was a separate business supported by our core business and that’s been very, very successful.”
Since April last year the new business has gone from nothing
The Waverley, Willerby holiday home
LAMBSON BUILDING PRODUCTS
In 2019, Lambson Building Products and Laminated Products, celebrated the impressive milestone of 50 years in operation. The company has grown tremendously from its humble beginnings, as a small subsidiary of the Lambson Chemical group, into Britain’s leading independent supplier to the caravan and leisure industries.
Over the last five decades, the company has established an enviable reputation as an industry leader for timber-based decorative panels, moulded profiles, internal doors and furniture components. As a result, Lambson Building Products and Laminated Products are now a trusted supplier to some of the largest holiday home and caravan manufacturers across Europe.
Their philosophy is a simple one: to provide their customers with quality products, on time, at a competitive price, ensuring all requirements are met. To achieve this goal they have been forced to grow and adapt, in an extremely competitive market place.
The company have embraced new ideas and new methods, constantly improving their design and manufacturing processes. They have Introduced the LEAN Manufacturing Initiative, created a 3D design team, attained ISO 9001:2015 certification and recently undertaken a 10 year Component Development Strategy to modernise and improve their, Yorkshire based, production facility.
Yet there is no end in sight for Lambson Building Products and Laminated Products as they look ahead to the next 50 years. Further, ambitious expansion plans, are already underway, that will enable the company to grow their customer base even more, improve the services they offer and strengthen their position as industry leaders.
www.lambsonbuildingproducts.co.uk
GRP Building and Shower Solutions Ltd are privately owned business specialising in GRP (fibreglass) Composite Mouldings. Our team has over 25 years’ experience in the processes of GRP working closely with major players in the UK’s and European Leisure Industry. GRP Group offer clients varied portfolio of products implementing advanced innovative manufacturing techniques, provide cost effective and unique solutions for all types of buildings and leisure development. We have in house design, model and pattern making department, manufacturing mould tooling and prototyping newly developed components.
GRP Building Solutions ltd specialises on both exterior and interior components like branding System, external and internal decor panels, splashbacks, bath surrounds, fire surrounds, roofing systems.
GRP Shower Solutions ltd are proud of successfully developed own range of one piece leak free shower pod in various size, colour and design. GRP Shower Solutions pod is easy clean, solid unit with walls integrated into walls.
We have an enviable reputation for quality and pride ourselves on our customer service ethos and aftercare programme, we ensure we go the extra mile to make sure our customers are 100% satisfied.
“WE LOOKED AT HOW TO INTRODUCE DOMESTIC STYLE WINDOWS INTO THIS MARKET”
to a £10 million turnover. The new business has been bringing a number of new developments to the sector.
“We looked at how to introduce domestic style windows into this market,” Munk says. “We also looked at how to get away from plastering the units because they will crack during transport. The industry had a lot of after-sale service issues, so we looked at if there was a different way of doing this. We introduced a material very common in Europe but new for UK buildings, a wall system that stops the cracking. You can
“WE CONTINUE TAKING THESE STEPS FORWARD TO SHOW PEOPLE WILLERBY IS A BUSINESS WITH A LOT OF OPPORTUNITIES”
wallpaper it, paint it, and it can carry 40 kilos, so consumers can hang their tv where they want to and do all kinds of post customisation after the sale.”
The company has been a success already, but there’s still been a learning curve.
“One of the real constraints in this business is drawing time,” Munk says. “You need to have drawings ready in time for the customer and production, which has led to completely new systems to improve the quality of what we do. In order to work better with labour we had to look at how the factory was laid out. We’ve made major investments in it. We really
enabled this business to scale up and now it is four times bigger than what it was.”
One thing that remains true across both the Willerby companies is that investing in people is a key priority.
“We continue taking these steps forward to show people Willerby is a business with a lot of opportunities and have built a programme where people can get qualified as engineers. It is important that we continue to invest in the people side of the business,” Munk tells us. “Just because you left school at 16 doesn’t mean you can’t start a career and take it all the way.”
Willerby Clearwater lodge
The Rowan, Bespoke Lodge by Willerby
