ENGINEERING AND MANUFACTURING
40th year celebration and £600k investment for DKM Sheetmetal
Forty years after it was established, Gloucestershire-based DKM Sheetmetal is celebrating - with some serious investment. DKM was established in 1979 in Stonehouse, to provide fine limit sheet metal and fabrication services to clients from a range of industries. The company has committed a further £600,000, taking its total investment from company earnings to £2m over the past two years. The company’s latest installations include: full Amada automation enabling 24 hour unmanned production, together with two further press brakes incorporating the latest 3i technology. This provides faster and continuous production to meet the needs of its clients. DKM’s plans for expansion do not stop at investment in equipment either. For the past three years, the company has taken on apprentices and plans to appoint yet more staff in the coming year. Steve Hearn, managing director, tells the story that DKM is a very different company to the one that many of their contacts in the industry remember from even 10 years ago. “If you say DKM to many buyers and former employees, they will just think of Unit 9 where we started out.Well,
now we have units 1 to 9,” said Mr Hearn. “We have grown from 3,000 square feet and six staff to our current site of 30,000 square feet and 45 employees. “We run 24 hour shifts now and our turnover is around £5 million.We are a very different company.” Steve Hearn has led DKM’s swift transformation, since he was part of the buy-out of the company from its previous owners in 2004. However, he is keen to emphasise that without the initial investment, ongoing support and friendship from co-owner Guy Goring, this transformation would not have been possible. Mr Hearn said DKM is nothing without its people. “We are very proud of our strong and successful engineering team. We pride ourselves on encouraging fresh new ideas and talent, as well as nurturing time served craftsmanship.” Its forward-thinking investment-based strategy has helped turn the company from a loss-making business to a multi-million-pound organisation, with clients ranging from Vodafone to national utility companies across the UK and mainland Europe. “Right from the start, the emphasis was always on reinvestment.We have always aimed towards the latest automation and technology. We also place a strong
68 | February 2019 | www. punchline-gloucester .com
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