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Grow with us even if you’re retired, says aerospace leader Leading Lancashire aerospace specialist Airframe Designs has issued a message to experienced engineers to get in touch as it expands its growing reputation for excellence in engineering.
An introduction to Troy
In today’s globalised world it’s hard for businesses to stay rooted in the communities which sustain them. Once, major plants would be supplied by a myriad of smaller local businesses, multiplying the benefits they brought to their locality and ensuring a strong local economy, but now that connection is often lost, as the need to be confident in your supply chain’s strength outweighs other considerations.
The pendulum may be swinging back, however. With the global focus on ESG (environmental, social and governance) issues, another three letters increasingly appear in companies’ considerations: CWB, Community Wealth Building. With growing focus on the broader impact businesses have, there’s an expectation that firms can demonstrate how they support their local communities, not just through direct employment and charitable activities (important though those are) but by keeping as much procurement as possible within the local economy. For those tendering for government contracts, it’s vital to demonstrate this, and the weighting given to these factors is only likely to grow should the widely forecast switch to Labour come to pass at the next election. NWAA member Troy is an unusual animal, one whose mission goes directly to the heart of this conundrum. Troy exists to champion independent merchants, enabling them to go head-to-head with the multinational giants, and to beat those corporates in the service they can give to their clients.
Founded in 1986, Troy initially emerged as a buying group, created by a collective of merchants clubbing together to combine their purchasing volume of industrial tooling and supplies, and so get better terms from their suppliers. That was how things carried on until in 2010 Troy was bought out by Paul Kilbride, and private ownership allowed the company to transform. At the point Paul acquired Troy it had 80 members and £30m of turnover. Today, there are over 400 members in the group, and turnover is in excess of £300m. Whilst this growth has been impressive, an even more important change has also been at work. Combined buying is, of course, essential to ensure that independent merchants can deliver the right price for their customers, but nowadays it’s nowhere near enough to enable them to serve those clients as they’d wish, and competitively with multi-nationals. For that reason, Troy has morphed from being a buying group alone to become the backbone organisation for the independent sector.
Through heavy investment in leading edge technology, Troy now provides a wide spectrum of services to its network of independent distributors, from invoice processing to e-commerce, data analytics and marketing support, carbon reporting and ERP systems. Paul Kilbride, CEO of Troy, says: “Independent businesses are vital for our communities and local economies. This is fundamentally why we exist; to support and help independent businesses thrive. “We have continued to, future proof the organisation with investments in the data driven sector and maintain leading the way with the addition of ai tools and an ever- expanding industry product data pool. Despite unexpected global supply chain turmoil, fast changing patterns of demand and high inflation, Troy remains resilient and thanks to our strong core and ethos, we continue to grow, supporting independents to succeed.” Troy provides businesses in the aerospace industry and beyond with a local supply chain alternative for products such as cutting tools, power tools, hand tools, abrasives, PPE and janitorial supplies, which supports your Community Wealth Building objectives. By equipping independent merchants within your local communities with the technology, data detail, supply chain, pricing and more, ensures you can buy from them with confidence, knowing that there’s no need to compromise your standards whilst making sure your business delivers the local benefit that it should.
From its base in Blackpool, the company continues to grow its offering to the aviation industry with its specialisms in producing highly complex components to some of the largest aviation, defence and space organisations worldwide. CEO Jerrod Hartley said: “We’re expanding and asking for experienced airframe design and stress engineers to contact us, even those who may be retired or wish to work part-time. “We’re building a reputation for engineering excellence, and we value the depth of knowledge that seasoned professionals bring. If you have experience and the right skills, we invite you to join us.
Exciting times are ahead as we collaborate with some of the most innovative organisations in the aviation industry. “We’re also nurturing talent and helping to grow and develop graduate and apprentice engineers through our structured training and mentoring from experienced design experts.” The teams working on specialist components at Airframe Designs span an age range of five decades with skills in design, analysis, certification and manufacturing. Recent projects undertaken by Airframe Designs include the integration of new systems into heavy lift drone platforms, conceptual
design at a platform level for new uncrewed air-systems, test rig and tooling for electric vehicle propulsion systems and most recently the design and analysis of operator consoles for a special mission aircraft. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has made it a priority to support older workers who want to return to work, with more than 3.5 million over 50s said to be unemployed according to figures from Age UK. For more information contact Airframe Designs, tel 01253 400320 or visit the Airframe Designs website.
Paul Kilbride CEO
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plane talk autumn 2023
www.aerospace.co.uk
@NWAerospace
plane talk autumn 2023
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