Piper Windows

Source: Construction Digital

Date :19/02/2008 09:31:07

With increasing levels of competition and the challenges this brings, Piper Double Glazing is developing innovative products while providing a flexible service

Written by Lucy Mowatt and produced by Ben Weaver

Alistair Craig, the operations manager at Piper Double Glazing, has worked in the double glazing industry for 27 years; gaining valuable experience in a sector with its fair share of challenges. For the past five years he has been employed by Piper and explains that the company has grown and developed, including the implementation of new processes in order to achieve the ISO 14001 certificate.

The company was established in 1983 by Neville Piper, who had previously been the MD at Piper Building Contractors. The company was initially set up to carry out refurbishment and construction work for commercial contracts, local authorities and housing associations, installing new windows and doors. It began with just eight employees and with the aim to supply windows to its sister company, Piper Building Contractors, but now the company is so successful in its own right that it has had to establish a retail division, Elephant Windows, and a trade division, Piper Trade Frames, which operate alongside its main commercial installation division.

Mr. Craig explains that Piper Window’s facilities in Ramsgate, Kent, cover 75,000 square feet and that there are two factories side-by-side. “These mirror each other in case we have an equipment failure or something like that.”

At this site the company is able to produce 2,500 frames a week and approximately 125 composite doors, which can cover a substantial number of demands.

In November 2007 the company qualified for the ISO 14001 environmental certificate. “For the last year we have concentrated on ISO 14001,” Alistair Craig explains. “We have met any criteria that we have had to match.” He says that Piper Double Glazing has not had to make any significant changes though, other than implementing a traceability programme, and that it was more a case of formalising what was already in place.

New operating systems

For the past 18 months the site has been working towards implementing the 5S continuous improvement system. This Japanese programme encourages companies to look at the concepts of organisation, orderliness, cleanliness, standardisation and discipline. Mr. Craig explains that this is very time consuming, although, “it bears fruit”. He goes on to say, “We’ve seen a few benefits in a few areas,” and that it is a case of working on one area of the business at a time.

Piper Double Glazing’s product range has also evolved in recent years. Many of its products are leading the UK fenestration market; its ‘A’ class energy efficiency rated window is leading the market in terms of innovation. This product line is the first of its kind on the market and is based on a triple glazed unit and incorporates VEKA casements. It has also developed an Armourfire Door, which is a GRP composite system capable of withstanding fire for half an hour. Chiltern Fire fully tested these doors, which are individually tailored for each customer’s specifications.

Quality and security are two factors which have to be taken into consideration when producing windows. As such, Piper Double Glazing has worked consistently towards gaining all relevant standards. The company is ISO 9001:2000 certified for quality, while it also holds British Standards for PVCu Extrusion (BS 7413), and the Kitemark for enhanced window security (BS 7950). It also complies with BS 7412 paragraph eight, referring to the manufacture of Double Glazed PVCu windows. Additionally, the windows are certified by a scheme run by the UK police service, known as Secured by Design. These positive achievements reflect Piper’s commitment to offering its customers the best windows it can.

These standards are maintained by Statistical Process Control procedures and in-line inspection, so that all products meet customer expectations. In fact, Piper Double Glazing is so confident of its expertise that it offers a ten year guarantee on plastic components, five years on glass and one year on iron parts.

Positive relationships

In line with this, the company also seeks to employ the best people from the local area. The company has its own surveyors, quantity surveyors, CAD department and planning department rather than employing subcontractors because they are more familiar with Piper’s ways of working. “We offer various benefits, like NVQ Training for our staff,” Mr. Craig says. “Pretty much everyone’s gone for it because it’s a handy qualification to have.” He goes on to explain that these credentials help the company’s flexibility and expertise, while also enabling them to carry out their own in-house audits, which work towards maintaining the quality that Piper is renowned for.

As well as working with VEKA, who provide casements for Piper’s windows, the company has around half a dozen other suppliers with whom it has developed effective working relationships. These include Pilkington Glass, Mila Hardware UK and Maco UK. “There are all sorts of intricacies involved with tooling and software and alike,” Mr. Craig explains. “It [the supplier base] is not something that we can easily rearrange...we now use the suppliers that can look after us best and at the best price.”

Market challenges

In recent years, however, the industry has been affected by difficulties in the market, which Piper Double Glazing has had to work hard to overcome. The majority of Piper Double Glazing’s sales are generated from the public sector and housing associations in the London area. “Public sector funding this year has been very slow in coming through, for whatever reason. Everyone has suffered from the same issues and it’s put everyone into a depreciating price spiral where we are all fighting for the same work,” Mr. Craig points out. This has meant that the company has been forced to look at pricing in order to have a competitive edge.

“We’ve started to see movement in the market, particularly in-line with the Decent Homes policies,” he continues, referring to the positive effect of the Decent Homes target, set by the government, upon the industry. This target must be hit by all Councils and Housing Associations by 2010 and stipulates that there must be sufficient provision of affordable, well maintained and secure housing. This will mean residential buildings will need to be overhauled or built to come into line with standards and provide extra work for the company. Alistair explains that he has started to see these changes towards the end of 2007 as public spending starts to increase and housing developments are planned.

Legislation is demanding more housing for the growing population, which will, in turn mean more opportunities for window companies. “We’re putting pressure onto development companies as that is a huge growth sector and we’ll do whatever we can to get into it,” Mr Craig states. He concludes by saying that he is expecting the company’s £15 million turnover to expand as there are signs that these factors will pay off.

Click here to read the corporate brochure on Piper Windows