Overcoming the downturn

, which recently opened a training and research-and-development facility at the Advanced Manufacturing Park in South Yorkshire, believes that innovation and training will be the key for businesses to survive the recession.

Equipment has been installed at the site to allow Dormer to look at creating the next generation of cutting tools. It is also inviting distributors and end users from around the world to view how its products are best used, with the ultimate aim being productivity and quality improvements.

Nick Garner, managing director of Dormer Tools, said: ‘The current financial situation is a global one and Dormer is a worldwide company, so there is no part of our supply chain that has not been affected. But everyone is in the same situation.

‘Over the last three to five years, Dormer has rewritten its strategy in preparation for a probable downturn and focused our future business on high-tech tooling, solid-carbide tooling and working very closely with the industry to see what will be required and when.

‘Training and development of people in new areas of engineering is the only way forward. We can’t continue to sit back and do the same things only to watch it slowly dwindle away with the economy.

‘We have to keep reinventing ourselves and stay ahead of any market change. This development, therefore, is a key part of our strategy in handling this recession,’ he added.

Oil and machine software companies from around the world, including DMG, the world’s biggest tool manufacturer, are working in partnership with Dormer to provide the equipment for the training.

Garner added: ‘The intellectual capital that sits within engineering in Sheffield is as marketable as the commodity products that we used to make here.

‘Manufacturing has gone to lower-cost-based countries, but the intellectual capital is retained here and that is marketable in its own right. It is one of the philosophies that we have embraced at Dormer,’ he said.