It was 11 years ago that Paul Stewart — now managing director of Chirton Engineering (chirtonengineering.co.uk) — was given just one hour’s notice of the closure of the company he was working for. Standing on a street in Wallsend with no job but with family responsibilities, he decided to set up on his own; three months later, Chirton was formed.

Mr Stewart says: “I begged and borrowed money from friends and family, took three machinists from my previous company and just went for it. We started with second-hand machines, scouring the auctions for lathes, mills and CNCs. At first, our customer base was mainly local, and we would do anything we could — including parts for machines. I’d sell an hour on the machine to anyone who wanted it; and while we certainly worked hard, luck
did play a part.

“We got a call from a company called Engineering Business that now makes a lot of sub-sea equipment, deck equipment, pipe lanes and carousels. At the time, they were just building small ploughs to go along the sea-bed. I’ve had them as a customer from the early days, and I’m still working for them now.”

Those early days were very much a hand-to-mouth existence. Mr Stewart had worked out exactly what turnover he needed — £11,000 per month, or £132,000 to get through year one. In the first month Chirton achieved £15,000
and was able to carry on. “Our turnover was £250,000 in the first year, and we ploughed all the profit back into the business.”

By 2006, the company’s turnover was £600,000, and word was spreading fast about the quality of work it was capable of. “We never employed a sales team, all of our business came from recommendation. We went from having one Aberdeen customer to 15. Then we managed to get a bit of work in high-end automotive, which led to working with a leading Formula One team.”

Need for space

After 10 years of solid growth, Chirton hit a problem that will be familiar to many sub-contractors — that of space. “I was stuck where I was. We couldn’t physically grow any more, and we couldn’t take another unit. There were also power restrictions that could adversely affect some really big projects we were quoting; we also needed to make some really serious investments to achieve the necessary big jump in technology.”

Mr Stewart knew that he needed help if he was to take Chirton to the next level. When he was approached by the Carrs Group, he said he only wanted to sell 10% of the company, but Carrs wanted it all. Initially, he was not interested. “However, after a lot more discussions, the offer made sense. To me, it is important to still be a family firm. My three sons work here, as do my brother, my nephew and my cousin. We have kept those family values and we have kept our training mentality, which is very important.”

Mr Stewart felt that Carrs Group was ‘a good fit’ and could help Chirton get to the next stage, which meant new machines and a new building. The company and its 60 employees moved into a purpose-built facility in North Shields, which now houses some ‘state of the art’ machining technology. “We were starting to see that a lot of companies were interested in larger batches of more-complex work, but we were struggling with our lead times because of the complexity of the parts and the machining times they required.”

Machine investment

An aluminium component for an oil pump, which holds the electrical circuit boards, was proving to be a particular problem.The brains of the pump, it was taking 4hr to machine, with eight different set-ups. Chirton gave the part to Worcester-based Yamazaki Mazak UK Ltd (www.mazakeu.co.uk). “The company’s technical team ran a simulation,” said Mr Stewart. “When the results came back, we studied them and saw that they had taken 70% of the machining out of the job. Mazak had it coming off an Integrex machine in 1hr flat. That was our justification for buying an
Integrex i-300S right there.

“We also bought a VTC 800/30SR, because we had one customer that required a lot of complex drilling operations, and we needed a vertical. This customer has an irregular order pattern, but the flexibility of the VTC is such that it can readily accommodate other types of machining to keep it busy.”

Looking ahead, Mr Stewart sees huge opportunities in the high-end automotive sector and nuclear. “It’s no secret that we work for McLaren on its new road car, with a contract to supply power units. The Integrex is key to us undertaking this type of work, which is both technical and complex. The parts come off the machine virtually finished. Nuclear work is also an opportunity that is going to be huge in the UK; and because we are part of the Carrs Group, which has already got the right contacts with the likes of Sellafield and British Nuclear, we’ve got a route in.”

Despite all the changes, Chirton retains its core values of quality and training. “This business might be changing, but our mentality hasn’t. We’re still very much driven by quality. If you want 10,000 nuts and bolts, we’re not the company for you. We do high-precision components; that’s where we make our profit.”

To that end, the company is working towards various accreditations, including the American Petroleum Institute, which will give it world-wide exposure to the sub-sea and offshore sectors. Chirton is also heavily committed to the further training of its workforce.

One of Mr Stewart’s few disappointments was his brainchild, the North East Advanced Manufacturing Association (NEAMA). “This is one of the most economically deprived areas in Europe with chronic youth unemployment, but we still can’t find enough programmers. The idea was to get 35 apprentices from sub-contractors all over the North East into a specialist training facility next door for a nine-month programme.

"We got manufacturers like Mazak, which was going to give us Mazatrol training simulators, and Siemens on board. We had a software suite and were going to train people using simulators in the same way that they train at Mazak. Unfortunately, we had our funding pulled at the last minute.”

However, he is determined to try again. “We have a responsibility to bring people into engineering and manufacturing. The sector has been good to me, and I want other young people to have the same chances that I did.”