West Midlands demolition firm AR Demolition has completed the £2.5m purchase of new plant and machinery in an investment in the company’s sustainable future.
The firm has bought four new demolition excavators, including three new versatile high reach Kiesel machines from Germany, in a £1.5m investment. The purchase follows a £1m acquisition of new machinery at the end of 2016 and heralds the sale of some redundant plant units purchased since AR Demolition was incorporated a decade ago.
Following annual double digit sales growth for the past 10 consecutive years, 2018 is shaping up to be the company’s best year yet with an unprecedented level of orders already on the books. Richard Dolman, managing director of the family-run firm based in Carlton near Nuneaton in Warwickshire, said the company was looking forward to sustainable growth over the coming years.
Mr Dolman said: “The sheer versatility of this new plant allows us to utilise fewer machines to perform the same function, with the ability to change attachments and change from standard to high reach arms in a fraction of the time with traditional machines. This provides us with massive operational efficiencies, which are of great benefit to our clients. The technology also brings other added benefits such as carbon reduction, which is something ever more important both to us and to our customers. We see this innovative technology as the future of AR Demolition and the industry as a whole.”
Mr Dolman, who co-owns the company with his cousin Andrew Thompson, said he considered sustainable growth and client satisfaction to be more important than turnover and profit. To tackle the challenge of recruiting quality personnel, AR Demolition plans to expand its apprenticeship scheme before the end of 2019 and is keen to grow staff levels beyond the 105 employees it currently has. The company has enrolled new apprentices into its own in-house scheme for the past five years, having previously appointed an in-house trainer to instruct new recruits using a unique demolition rig simulator.
“Investment in new plant and machinery is only part of the story,” Mr Dolman said. “AR Demolition continues to invest heavily in our people so that we can continue to proudly serve our customers in the best possible way. Innovation is also key and are now seeing the exciting development of creating bespoke solutions for each job, in our own fabrication centre. The true mark of our success as a business will be AR Demolition continuing to develop its reputation as an ethical company which puts the needs of its customers first. That reputation is growing and it’s why the 2018 order book is looking like we’re going to have our best year ever.”
However Mr Dolman said that finding new staff to match the quality of his company’s offering was a significant challenge for the firm. He cited another challenge as being the difficulty of having to say goodbye to surplus machinery.
“Since Andrew and I started the business,” he said, “we have been proud to only ever buy new plant. We feel an almost personal connect to each unit. So when we have to make way for new, bigger plant with greater capability, it’s a real wrench to have to say goodbye to some loyal and trusted machines.”
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