Member Article

£3 million investment safeguards and creates Teesside engineering jobs

A Teesside-based precision and heavy engineering company has completed the latest stage of a major investment programme, part-funded by the Regional Growth Fund, which is safeguarding and creating jobs.

Tees Components Limited is spending more than £3 million to increase machining capabilities, lifting capacity and advanced manufacturing techniques at its base in Saltburn-by-the-Sea, East Cleveland.

A large chunk of the investment, in the region of £1.2 million, has seen the acquisition and installation, itself a major civil engineering feat, of a ten-metre travelling precision CNC floor borer, markedly increasing the company’s milling capabilities.

Meanwhile, an advanced two-metre diameter vertical turning lathe, costing a further £500k, is in the final stages of installation.

The two machines, coupled with a new £200k overhead crane, means Tees Components will be one of only a handful of European companies capable of CNC machining, fabrication and assembly of components up to 70 tonnes.

It has also spent £80k on a state-of-the-art 3D laser tracker, while a new shot blasting and painting facility capable of handling components up to 20 tonnes and four metres will enable it to offer an increased range of services.

A new £200k CNC rotary table, capable of loading 130 tonnes, is being imported from Germany for delivery in November, which will provide even greater accuracy and efficiency in the workshop.

The German-made Schiess Horimaster floor borer has already helped Tees Components secure work it previously would not have been able to bid for, the precise milling of a 35-tonne component for global offshore company OneSubsea.

The investment programme, the latest stage of which is supported by £400k from the Let’s Grow pot of money made available in round five of the Regional Growth Fund, will help the family-owned and run business target emerging overseas markets in South-East Asia, the Middle East and South America.

Already it has safeguarded 17 jobs at Tees Components’ principal works at Skelton and its sister site at nearby Lingdale, while the creation of a further 19 skilled and semi-skilled jobs, including welders, mechanical fitters and electrical engineers, and an expansion of its highly-regarded apprenticeship scheme, has so far increased the workforce from 60 to 73.

General Manager, Sharon Lane, said: “We have a well-established and growing customer base across a wide range of sectors.

“With a strong order book and the assistance from Let’s Grow, we had the confidence to embark on this investment to gain a further edge on our competitors.

“We can now offer precision and advanced engineering services with an efficiency and technology not seen before.

“Geographically, we are right on the edge of the (RGF) funding area, so the advice and support of Tees Valley Unlimited and Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council’s enterprise and business growth team has been crucial in steering us in the right direction.

“Huge credit must also go our own management and engineering team, who have not only secured this timely and considerable investment, but have faultlessly delivered a major civil and mechanical engineering project to get the company ready for this exciting new period in its history.

“With the jobs situation as it is at the moment, it is massively important that this investment has enabled us not only to safeguard and create skilled jobs, but also to continue and expand our engineering apprenticeship programme.

“More than a third of our workforce began their careers here as apprentices, so a ‘job for life’ really does mean that here.”