Earlier last year we had the opportunity to accommodate a couple of Dutch students, studying Business and Economics who wanted some additional business experience, especially in the U.K.

Both Bart (Meulenmeesters) and Siar (Rahimi) arrived and settled in well, both into the business and socially. They were a great asset to our organisation whilst here, gaining valuable experience in our export department as well as helping the company carry out some additional evaluations with a view to streamlining our approach to transport/courier companies.

Recently, since their stay with us was coming to an end I grabbed the chance to have a chat with them about their stay in the U.K. and how British businesses differ from their previous experiences in the Netherlands.

Both agree that the atmosphere in U.K. businesses is very informal compared to the Netherlands, although they accept that Dakin-Flathers is a close knit company. They were surprised by how involved both the Chairman and Managing Director were in the day to day business affairs and how approachable they were if any questions arose.

They also enjoyed the different social aspects of the U.K., both inside and outside the business. Although sometimes the surrounding conversations could have been lost in translation, (I’m from South Yorkshire and I sometimes find myself lost with the local, West Yorkshire slang) both Siar and Bart commented upon how helpful and friendly everyone was.          

Bart and Siar have now returned to the Netherlands to continue their studies, and all at Dakin-Flathers wish them well for the future. They are taking back with them a variety of business related skills and experiences, as well as the additional ability of being able to speak broad Yorkshire, a skill I’m sure you’ll agree will stand them in good stead for the future.

As I’m sure many of you are aware, possibly highlighted by a number of gentlemen in your vicinity, the Movember charity event, to raise awareness of men’s cancers and illness by growing a moustache, has recently ended. No doubt bringing with it many happier looking men, not to mention their partners.

Until recently this was a charity I, along with many others at Dakin-Flathers, had heard about and possibly sponsored but nothing more…all that was about to change.

Spurred on by our own Despatch Manager a small number of us in our factory at Featherstone, decided to try our hand, or should I say lip, at growing a moustache and raising money for a very worthy cause. It was hard growing, sorry going, at first and needless to say itchy in the end, but somewhere in the middle our competitive spirit kicked in and we all managed to resist the lure of the razor.

Although we looked a questionable bunch, you can assess yourselves by examining our photograph, our colleagues at Dakin-Flathers, as well as personnel at Calor Gas and Ashgrove J and I school, joined in by generously sponsoring our cause and helping to raise approximately £1000!

This is not the only charity which is supported by Dakin-Flathers, earlier this year some of our personnel challenged themselves to an extensive bike ride for charity. But it is at least our latest efforts to help the local community and people less fortunate then ourselves. All of the money will be going to a local men’s cancer charity and we hope will go someway to helping their cause or eradicating the disease.

Due to a number of contributing factors including an increase in our bandsaw and band knife range we are currently having the factory/offices increased to nearly double its original size!?!

The additional space created by this extension will not only help us to reach our ever increasing production targets, by bringing in more personnel and machinery, but it will also allow us to re-evaluate our layout so as to be true to our lean manufacturing roots.

Dakin-Flathers has always been a keen user of the Lean Manufacturing principals as set out by Toyotism and Ford. We believe by reducing waste and increasing quality we will produce the best band saw and band knife available thus satisfying our customers and making the most from the resources available.

Although with the building work starting we are entering a transitional period with a vast amount of upheaval, rest assured that we will do our upmost to make sure this does not interfere with us providing you with superior quality bandsaw and bandknife.

As you can see from the photographs below the initial groundwork has begun and the building contractors are working feverishly to complete the build as quickly as possible whilst causing as little disruption to our working day as they can (which we very much appreciate).

With things progressing at such a rapid pace I’m sure it won’t be long before there’s a lot more to show you, so keep your eyes on our website, twitter and blog pages to keep up to date with the “Dakin-Flathers build watch”!?

It’s an exciting time here at Dakin-Flathers right now. We’ve a number of new projects taking shape at the moment including our new social media network to help us keep in touch with you, our customers.

Over the next few months we’ll be introducing videos, blogs, updates and tweets which we hope will not only give us useful feedback for possible bandsaw and bandknife development, but also gives you an idea of how we work on a daily basis to exceed your expectations. Within these communications we will offer support through demonstrations and “how to” guides to help you resolve some of the daily challenges you and your customers face.

In another initiative to improve our manufacturing process and cope with an ever increasing demand for products we have recently appointed a number of new factory staff members, allowing us to strengthen our bandsaw production team and more importantly, from your perspective, improve our output.

We’ve also taken on a new office staff member, Hannah who I’m sure you’ll be dealing with in the near future. It will clearly take some time for the new recruits to settle in but rest assured we’ll be catching up with Hannah  and some of the other new team members soon to see how they’ve settled in, are finding the change from previous careers and what they’re looking forward to whilst at Dakin-Flathers.

So, if you have any technical questions or suggestions for things you’d like to see on our social media pages feel free to contact us on the page provided or through our twitter or YouTube pages, and one of our experts will be happy to help.