ICM is an established project management company with specialist business teams covering shop-fitting, office interior fit-outs, exhibition stand fitting, commercial joinery, electrical contracting and maintenance and repair services.
The company’s teams combine to offer a wealth of expertise and experience. ICM seeks to offer a wide range of interior solutions to a number of clients throughout the length and breadth of the country.
Established in 1998, ICM has rapidly become the benchmark standard that many others firms aspire to achieve. Its success in the retail sector has enabled it to expand its range of services to include office fit-outs, leisure facilities, motorway service stations, exhibition stands and fine dining establishments.
ICM is extremely customer-focused and has earned a reputation, not only for delivering projects within the required time frame, but within budget and to the specified quality standards.
By striving to understand and exceed their clients’ requirements, ICM is rewarded by repeat businesses – surely the highest recommendation that a firm can receive. The company works for a variety of clients including major high street chains and smaller independent outlets.
ICM first purchased the Rover A G FT CNC router from Biesse in June 2012 to perform a number of tasks which were normally undertaken by hand.
“We used to process sheets of material using a panel saw, then hand-drill holes,” explains Ian Wyllie, ICMs workshop manager. “We also had to cut grooves by hand to accept metal trims, which although successful, took an inordinate amount of time.
“We’re extremely serious about our business and realised we needed to improve our efficiency in order to provide the service which our customers were demanding.
“The purchase of the Rover CNC enabled us to nest, drill and groove the panels in one operation, which not only reduced production times but also provided excellent levels of quality and consistency. Material wastage was also reduced so the overall benefits were huge.”
ICM actually saved around 40 man hours per week which together with the savings on material has provided a two year return on investment.
The Akron 440 edgebanding machine was purchased mainly for producing doors. “We used to glue and clamp the solid wood lipping which would take about four hours per door. It now takes less than 10 minutes,” Ian continues. “The knock-on benefits are also realised in the availability of more floor space for both door production and storage.”
Apart from the financial aspects, what are the other key benefits of ICM’s investment?
“Without doubt, our investment has enabled us to gain a larger market share. We are totally customer-focused and always strive to improve performance for our joint benefit. We fully understand that unoccupied premises offer no return for our customers and our response times now mean that we can deliver a much faster turnaround.”
“We have won more contracts from our existing customers based on our ability to multi-site. Our order turnaround time has decreased from 7-10 days to 2-3 days and our savings in terms of production costs have reduced by over 60%,” explained Ian.
“The fact that we can also re-visit our customers and value engineer their designs by providing more efficient production techniques, coupled with design and quality enhancements, has also been a massive plus for both us and them.”
ICM’s workforce havs also experienced the benefits in terms of up-skilling and improved health and safety as there is now less material handling and manual cutting using the panel saw.
“There’s also the benefit of being able to go from CAD straight to the machine. This has also been a valuable and shared learning experience for both our CNC operator and CAD designer as the skill levels within the company have developed.”
In terms of ICM’s decision making process: “Biesse was recommended to us by another operator who had a Rover CNC for over 15 years.
“Reliability is of paramount importance. When we have a problem, fast turnaround is critical to our business, especially in upholding our own standards of customer service. On the odd occasion where we’ve had a breakdown, Biesse has always responded quickly, even to an engineer attending the same day.”
ICM visited Biesse’s Tech Centre in Daventry for a machine demonstration and to meet the teams responsible for service and spares.
“Relationships are important and we left feeling confident not only in the machine but also in the people who would provide the service.”
Ian concluded that: “Biesse’s Total Care package was a major factor in choosing both machines as it provides peace of mind and confidence in the service and reliability.”
