From left: Simon Lock and Peter Wedd
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Change: It’s a word that has the ability to challenge the norm and make you do things differently. But, when you’ve been in business for almost 100 years, how do you navigate the risks associated with change and remain adaptable enough to face the new opportunities it can bring?
For Cambridgeshire-based joinery manufacturer, Wedd Joinery, the secret to its 95-year success story lies in its openness to evolve and its commitment to remaining true to its core values.
“Wedd Joinery has come a long way since my grandfather started out as a house builder in 1925,” begins Peter Wedd, third generation owner of Wedd Joinery. “As a family-run business, we’ve been through wars, several financial crashes and now, a global pandemic, but we know our craft and we do it well. This doesn’t mean we can afford to rest on our laurels. Now more than ever, businesses can’t afford to stand still but, I don’t believe you should ever change for changes sake.
It’s this forward-thinking approach that saw Wedd Joinery become one of the first companies in the UK to get involved in post forming, one of the first companies in the UK to use Formica’s HPL and, in the 1980’s, one of the first companies to integrate Magi-Cut optimisation software into its production processes. “It’s natural progression – just like it was when my father decided to join my grandfather in the family business and branch out into making doors and window frames. By the 1960’s we had our first commercial joinery project: an order for timber framed bus seats with laminate formed backs for Marshalls Motor Bodies. It was the next logical step for Wedd Joinery and more commercial joinery projects soon followed.”
Acoustic wall & ceiling panels at the new Peter Hall Performing Arts Centre, Perse School, for R G Carter Construction
Coutts Bank on the Strand, for Furniture Contracts
Feature Wall as part of the COEL fit-out of IQ Capital
Cambridge Building Society
Kitchens and Corian tops for multiple unit residential scheme, Kensington & Chelsea
Peter believes that good companies facilitate change but, only when it makes sense to do so. “Take our recent business acquisition as an example,” says Peter.
“We purchased Camweavers, a furniture manufacturer, in 2018 after building a 70-year relationship with the company. It had a good client base that didn’t conflict with our existing market, an experienced workforce and a very good reputation in the industry. Not only did the investment allow us to gain new business in new markets, it also offered us 14 skilled employees that we could integrate into our existing production team. By bolting on another company to our own, we have increased our turnover and increased the skill levels within our business.”
The importance Peter places on his team is clear to see. “I’ve always had a theory that anyone can buy new machinery, but you can’t buy good people. Our team is currently made up of three apprentices and over thirty people on the shop floor, with our longest serving, former apprentice, being with us for 47 years. The experience of our long serving, highly skilled joiners is invaluable to the younger team members and it’s this kind of experience money can’t buy.”
It’s not just internal relationships that remain an important factor for the established joinery company. “We’ve built some great relationships with our suppliers over the years. We’ve been working with Lathams since our very beginnings and our laminate supplier IDS, for decades. We are now an IDS Platinum Customer. We continue to work closely with our Corian supplier, CDUK, edging specialist, Osterman and adhesive supplier, Jowat, and have now become a Formica Approved Contractor. They are important relationships for us and a lot can be said for loyalty but, that said, we can’t afford to become complacent – we all know that.”
In fact, it’s one of the company’s newest suppliers, Panelco, that has had the biggest impact in its production processes in recent years. “We now buy the majority of our board material through Panelco. Their service has been a game changer for us. =Every order is delivered next day, even a single sheet of MDF is with us by 6:30am the next morning. We no longer hold any stock in our warehouse or have to plan our production times around our supplier’s delivery dates. The whole process is incredibly flexible and allows us to work more efficiently.”
This approach continues to Wedd’s machinery suppliers, too. “We’ve recently invested in new Homag machinery but the relationship has grown organically over many years. We still use older Butfering Sanders (now owned by Homag Group), as well as a Holzma beam saw and Homag edgebander. More recently, we’ve invested in a new five-axis Venture 115M CNC to run alongside our existing four-axis CNC.”
Peter continues, “We wanted to invest in five-axis technology because we knew it could save us time on repetitive work, like cleaning out hinges and squaring out openings in panels. Shortly after the five-axis machine was installed it was put to work on a very large contract that ran for over a year, manufacturing bookcases and library furniture out of 44mm thick European oak. What would previously have been a number of processes for us, including mortices and tenons, grooves for tonk strip, rebates for back panels, etc. was all carried out in one program on one machine and saved countless man hours.”
Investments such as this are continuing to pave the way for the manufacturer, as their sights remain firmly set on the future. “We want to continue doing what we do and continue to do it well. We’re seeing an uplift in traditional joinery and cabinetry sales, as well as bonding, panel sizing, edgebanding and CNC machining projects. It is this panel fabrication side of the business that is seeing the most growth and an area that we are focusing on with our subsidiary, Granta Panels. 2021 has seen the purchase of another exciting piece of Homag machinery in the form of an E310/V CNC with zero joint line edgebanding technology, due to be installed in May this year. This will allow us to offer zero joint line edgebanding on curved panels, as well as adding a third CNC to our line-up.”
