A Year in Change for Nordell

A year in change - Nordell has gone through a lot in the past year; we’ve had to adapt to a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon like the rest of the world, but through this our business has grown exponentially and our workforce has more than doubled.

Our response to the increase in demand due to the Covid-19 pandemic was the construction of our new dedicated Class 7 cleanroom facility. The cleanroom gave us the capability to manufacture medical grade products in controlled air environment, allowing us to support the fight against Covid-19. Despite huge market uncertainty across the global marketplace, we took the decision to adapt and invest in our facilities to build an infrastructure for future growth and in turn creating local employment opportunities. Our decision to invest was supported with the award of a grant from Coast to Capital allowing us to accelerate our growth and increase our headcount.

During the height of the first wave of the pandemic, some of our office-based teams were working from home in line with government guidelines, missing out on the build program taking place at Nordell! Dan, our Head of Commercial wrote about his experience working from home here. Our toolroom was moved to a new space in the factory to accommodate the beginning of the cleanroom facility’s construction. Around this time, we also reviewed our branding, creating a new sleek and modern look, whilst updating our website with further content and making it easier to navigate.

At the beginning of August, we launched our internal communication platform, Workvivo, an internal, social & business network, allowing us to communicate to our staff in real time. Workvivo also allows our team to create, share and interact with fellow co-workers on whatever content they decide. The possibilities were (and still are) endless.

In October we received the keys to a new unit on the same industrial estate which we opened as a new satellite distribution hub to our main manufacturing site. The new space was desperately needed and allowed us to facilitate the ongoing build at our Dominion Way manufacturing.

In November, as the second wave took hold, Nordell remained fully operational, being classed as an essential manufacturing business of critical parts for many of our customers. Our class 7 cleanroom was up and running, continuing to support the medical sector whilst the construction of “Cleanroom 2” was well under way and due for completion in December.

Our growth during this time is largely due to the amazing team we have; it’s not just been hectic for business but for those keeping those businesses running. To us, our team is our most valuable resource and because of this, we committed to supporting them every way we could. We signed up to “Health Assured”, an independent health and wellbeing provider.

Wrapping up 2020 at Nordell with Christmas, our factory was now operational 24/7 and the team was exceptionally busy! Despite strong demand, we took the decision to shut for the extended Christmas holiday as we traditionally do, to give our staff a well-earned Christmas and New Year break!

We were back bright and early in January to take delivery of 5 new Haitian Zeres Electric Moulding Machines increasing our cleanroom capability to 10 machines. These electric presses, are highly efficient, keeping us at the forefront of production in the plastics industry.

Only a few months into 2021, and we wrapped up quarter 1 with our regular quarterly review. Over a 6-month period, our workforce had more than doubled from 80 to around 160. Today we employ over 190 people.

In January we made a strategic decision to sell our extrusion business, using the area to create much needed storage space for raw materials and customer mould tools.

We expanded our cleanroom manufacturing capability further in March, adding an additional 5 electric moulding machines, increasing our Cleanroom machine count to 15.

So, the business had adapted with significant infrastructure changes and a much bigger team. Our structures now needed to adapt to provide a structure that supported the extended team now operating 24/7. A few months ago, key structural changes were implemented across our operational and quality teams to provide greater focus. We’ve added management and supervision roles to our ever-growing team by shift and business unit.

Nordell is now well set for the challenges ahead and is working on many interesting and exciting projects as we enter the final half of the year.

Posted 3 years ago By Nordell HQ

A Year in Change for Nordell

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