Derbyshire-based www.carfulan.com Carfulan Group has seen a 20% expansion of its workforce as it continues to strengthen its offering to UK manufacturers.

Part of a revamped five-year business plan, a targeted recruitment drive has seen eight new faces join the group across its four companies – OGP UK, SYS Systems, Zoller UK and Vicivision UK.

Zoller UK, a specialist in intuitive tool pre-setting, inspection and management solutions has added Rob Wait and James Fell to its sales team, while Karl Ledwith and Simon Smart have been recruited to bring their expertise to the service and customer support department.

Meanwhile, 3-D printing expert and Stratasys UK platinum partner SYS Systems has welcomed technical sales engineer Tom Purvis-Hislop and applications engineer Tom Martin, with Group management accountant Lucie Brown and digital marketing specialist Chris Lockwood completing the line-up.

Despite predictions of national unemployment and recession, the Carfulan Group, which now employs over 50 people, is bucking the trend by experiencing high demand for its technologies as the manufacturing sector fights back against the impact of Covid-19.

Managing director Chris Fulton said: “Our new five-year business plan takes us right up to 2025 and our people are critical to its success. We have made a significant investment up front to get the right people through the door and fully up to speed, so that by the end of the period we are confident we will have a market-leading team right across the Group.

“We have been looking to find the right people to grow the Zoller UK sales department for some time, so it is great to have two experienced guys from the machine tool world coming on board to help us kick on.

“The recruitment drive isn’t stopping here though – if we continue to be successful we are keen to grow further, across all of our companies.

“We realise that these are challenging times for the manufacturing industry, but the demand for our products and services remains. We need people out there to meet that demand and, by getting talented and motivated individuals in the right places, we know we will come out the other side a lot stronger.”

The Carfulan Group is also in the middle of selecting its next batch of apprentices, who will work alongside its team of experienced engineering professionals to support customers in real-world scenarios.

Those successfully completing the three-year Engineering Apprenticeship programme can expect to be offered a permanent role within the Group’s sales, service or applications teams, each of which is dedicated to providing cutting-edge solutions to help businesses improve their production performance.