The UK’s leading manufacturer for air brake lines on commercial and agricultural vehicles - Illston & Robson has experienced record-breaking first-quarter sales this year after dropping down to a 10 year low in Spring 2020. With the demand for more trucks and trailers on the road since the start of the pandemic, Illston and Robson has reaped the benefits of supplying air brake lines to major transport companies such as Amazon.
As you may have noticed, the desire for delivered goods has massively increased during the course of the ongoing pandemic due to lockdown restrictions. Because of this, the need for more delivery trucks on the road has been vital for the continuity of this service. Claire Reid, Director at Illston & Robson, mentioned that this has had huge benefits for the sector they supply to, with many distribution businesses ordering numerous air brake systems for their new fleets.
The Birmingham-based manufacturing firm has two product lines, the first produces air brake components for the truck and trailer industry, and the second produces components for the yellow goods industry, mainly Caterpillar.
Though the second product line mentioned hasn’t seen a massive increase in sales, the air brake line product has bumped up sales allowing the business to achieve a record-breaking first quarter. Claire said:
“The increase in sales has been very welcome after such a turbulent year. We are now facing a new challenge of maximizing our capacity to meet customer demand. This has led to us purchasing a new CNC lathe from (fellow MiM members) STAR, allowing us to rearrange our manufacturing plant to increase capacity.”
Illston and Robson have constantly improved their product over the years, however, their innovation mainly comes from reorganising their manufacturing processes. Since current owners Mark and Claire Reid took over the business in November 2019, the directors have since pushed forward their 3-year plan executing most of it within their first 6 months of ownership due to the pandemic. Claire concluded:
“We have improved our processes by delegating more ownership to supervisor and administrative levels, as well as eliminating a lot of ‘time-wasting administrative processes. Delegating more ownership has especially seen massive benefit, as it gives staff the chance to be more involved and aware of what is happening within the business.
“As a family-run SME, we were able to react quickly and keep up with demand allowing us to go from a one-year low to a record breaking first few months. We have worked together and embraced internal changes in order to meet customer demand.”