A management buy-out earlier this year has given a new lease of life to the British operations of Morris Material Handling. Bill Oliver, Operations Director, talks to Jayne Flannery about the company's plans to reinforce its long-standing reputation for high quality overhead travelling cranes and hoists.

The uncertainty surrounding the world economy makes the decision to proceed with a management buy-out of the British operating arm of Morris Material Handling a brave one. "Our former US parent was in severe financial difficulties and was forced into finding a buyer for 'Morris' in the UK" says Bill Oliver, Operations Director. "A number of rivals had expressed interest in parts of the business, but no-one wanted to buy it intact. A management buy-out was the only option that would keep the company with 350 staff together," he explains. Loughborough is the location of the new independent company's headquarters, although the buy-out has also included smaller operations in Singapore and Thailand along with various joint venture rights.

"Our markets have become considerably more competitive, but we have a number of strategies in place to deal with this. Of these, our manufacturing strategy is key to the development of the Loughborough plant" Bill Oliver comments. The Loughborough factory is one of the largest and most efficient crane and hoist manufacturing facilities in Europe. The ISO 9001 accredited plant was re-built in 1995 with an investment of £7 million. Now the onus is simply on adding refinements. Even before the re-build, Morris was operating cellular manufacturing systems. Now state of the art design and machine tool technology, including computer numerically controlled (CNC) machine tool programming has been added, along with just-in-time production scheduling. "Increasing the flexibility of our workforce has also been an important factor in increasing productivity and driving down costs. Within each manufacturing cell, operators are capable of managing just about every machine. Now 80 per cent of them are running at least two machines and in some cases three," he adds.

Cranes carrying the Morris name have been at the forefront of the lifting and handling industry for over 100 years. and can be found in almost every industry, be it power generation, manufacturing, water treatment, metals production. and more recently waste to power plants. The breadth of industries Morris serves means that every crane is different. These differences may be minor, such as the size of the building, or, every detail of the application could be unique.

These differences are demonstrated by some of the prestigious projects Morris has recently supplied cranes to. These have included cranes designed to lift 400 tonnes and 200 tonnes for transformer manufacturing, 3 cranes each lifting 130 tonnes supplied as part of the new Mubarak pumping station in Egypt, and a 70 metre span crane for the aviation industry. Projects of this size require considerable attention to detail in manufacturing, and high engineering values. This same attention to detail can also be seen in the company's latest electric chain hoist, the S3, the UK's leading electric chain hoist.

The Morris S3 range of high performance electric chain hoists is one of the market leaders in the new generation of high specification hoists. When developing the S3 high engineering values and increased operator safety were the key design criteria. The result was a competitively priced high specification hoist, bristling with safety features, that also knows its own operating history. From the data collected the owner can tell how long the hoist has been operating and if it is being abused. Changing health and safety legislation is increasingly making this sort of knowledge important.

Approximately half of the business is export based and Morris is seeing strong growth in various countries of the Middle East. They are also noting an upturn in interest from some markets in the Far East. "We're not seeing any signs of activity from some parts of the region but demand is really starting to pick up in others," he says. "In the UK we're seeing much stronger competition from European suppliers. We are now the only major manufacturer of cranes and hoists in the UK that undertakes all manufacturing here. We believe that this counts for a lot with our customers. Overseas the UK is still perceived as a high quality manufacturing base and it is this quality end of the market that we want. There will always be cheap imports to contend with but we believe that we are still extremely price competitive in relation to the level of quality and service that we offer" says Bill Oliver.

Typically cranes have a useful life of 20-30 years, often more. When investing money for this length of time crane owners need to know that they will be able to get parts and service for the life of the crane. Morris, through its material handling centres, network of independent distributors and foreign agents supply parts for the installed base of Morris is equipment throughout the world. Among the innovative parts resources is a swift order shop (SOS) dedicated to providing parts support. "This is a unique facility. When a non stock part is needed urgently for a breakdown we can make it, and frequently we find ourselves doing so over night" says Bill Oliver. A second innovative parts service is Allparts. The Allparts mission is to supply any part for any crane any time; this may be standard off the shelf items or bespoke engineered parts manufactured in the SOS shop. As was recently the case when the company produced 2 hoist drums. Each drum was approximately 4.5m long and 3.5m tall, critical spares for a 500t crane used for steel making.

The Morris Institute, a dedicated training facility is yet another innovative idea. This full-service training organisation provides on-site, regional and international training and safety instruction in an interactive atmosphere, giving hands-on experience to both operators and maintenance personnel. The courses include 'off the shelf' courses or purpose designed to the customer's precise requirements.

The MBO has given the management team at Morris a unique opportunity. Bill Oliver comments "we have been able to bring together best practice manufacturing, a strong range of products, a comprehensive after-market service and a flexibility to change that is often stifled by an overseas parent. This we believe is a winning combination for our customers and for the company."