Southport precision engineering firm Lattimer has secured one of the UK’s most celebrated business accolades after winning the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in International Trade.
The long-standing Merseyside firm manufactures complex component parts primarily for the glass container manufacturing industry. It exports to more than 56 countries worldwide with international orders amounting to 96pc of total sales.
The £12.2million turnover business underwent a rigorous assessment from the Queen’s Award Office involving a 10,000-word submission and financial vetting to prove ‘steep’ year-on-year international sales growth over the past three years.
Senior management are now to attend a Royal reception at Buckingham Palace in June this year, hosted by The Prince of Wales, where they will receive a ‘Grant of Appointment’.
Lattimer Holdings CEO Stephen Waterhouse said the achievement was only possible due to the immense effort of the company’s 114-strong workforce as well as past generations who had all contributed significantly to the firm’s success.
“It is a huge privilege and honour to receive the Queen’s Award for Enterprise,” he said. “It truly doesn’t get any more high-profile or prestigious than an official endorsement from Her Majesty the Queen. There is an enormous sense of pride and satisfaction amongst our entire team, who thoroughly deserve this acknowledgement. It simply would not have been possible without the commitment, desire and dedication of our exceptional workforce, many of whom have come through internal apprenticeships and have been with us their entire careers.
“This award is the result of many decades of hard-work and determination. Lattimer has had to evolve and remain resilient since setting up in 1937. It took many years to build a reputation as a solid British manufacturer before a major breakthrough in the 1970s when we helped a local glass container company solve a problem in their production process. This innovation was so successful it inspired Lattimer to develop other products for the worldwide market. Following the early successes of the original Lattimer “Pusher” and “Belt Arm” in 1977, we grew to be a world leader in the design and supply of high quality ‘IS variable equipment’.
“We have remained at the forefront of the ‘design and build’ of components and assemblies for the glass container industry ever since. However, this has required energy, ambition and resource. We have always aimed to innovate and develop new and improved manufacturing techniques to stay ahead of competitors, while keeping an eye out for opportunities in other industrial sectors where our expertise is also relevant.
“Today we export to all four corners of the world, from Asia, Africa and Europe to the Americas and Australia. We manufacture more than 20,000 component parts, through a number of different machining processes including milling, turning, mill-turning and grinding. As a result, Lattimer is now in a stronger position than ever before in its 80-year history, with growing order books and a world-wide reputation for engineering excellence.”
The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise is an awards programme for British businesses and other organisations which excel at international trade, innovation or sustainable development. The scheme was established as The Queen’s Award to Industry by a royal warrant on November 30, 1965. They are the highest official UK award for British businesses.
Lattimer UK Managing Director Mark Hailwood said the future looks bright for the firm with a new product development underpinning a 15-year growth plan.
“A key element of our expansion plan involves a multi-lingual sales force deployed to drive growth across mainland Europe. This follows recent success in Portugal and Spain where a trial model was rolled out and resulted in a major sales increase in the first year. It’s a significant shift in the way Lattimer has operated in this particular region, now directly employing a nimble in-house team and as well as language skills, they bring vital knowledge and understanding of cultures and working practices to their target markets.
“In order to maintain our reputation as a world-leading engineering company we made a decision five years ago to invest in our own internal training academy. Our highly skilled engineers are the backbone of our business. The Lattimer Training Academy has enabled us to take the initiative and fully manage our own engineering resource development. We are passionate about local skills development and knowledge transfer from our most experienced team members. We deliver rigorous, high-level apprenticeship schemes, employing a minimum of three apprentices each year. The Training Academy is proving hugely successful in our mission to nurture the next generation of engineers, maintaining the highest levels of engineering skill and quality, guaranteeing our future and enabling us unleash our ambitious growth plans.”
For more information contact Mark Hailwood on +44 (0)1704 535040, email mark.hailwood@lattimer.com or visit the website www.lattimer.com
Notes to editors
Overseas activity
Lattimer’s ethos is firmly rooted in developing international trade and new export markets. Exports are fundamental to its current success and future now accounting for a total of 96pc of turnover, with 17pc of this coming from European markets. Lattimer’s largest overseas markets include the US, Australasia, the Middle East and Africa. In the first half of 2016 the firm matched last years’ overall sales total for the Ukraine and Russian markets, as an example of consistent and continuing growth. Giving an indication of the scale of activity Lattimer has secured recent deals across the US, Australia, Germany, France, Spain, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, South Africa, Italy, UAE, Moldova, Netherlands, Tanzania, Ukraine, New Zealand, China, Russia, Egypt, Bulgaria, Uzbekistan, India, Korea, Vietnam, Denmark, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Portugal, Japan, Israel and Taiwan. The firm has achieved notable success in these specific territories because it has astutely targeted their burgeoning bottled glass manufacturing markets, which are amongst the most vibrant in the world.
Lattimer background
Lattimer is a globally renowned precision machinist and a champion exporter with overseas contracts accounting for 96pc of all sales. It designs and manufactures more than 20,000 different component parts predominantly for the glass container manufacturing industry. Lattimer is effectively a one stop shop for IS variable equipment. The firm employs circa 114 people with its head office located in Southport, North West, where it was founded in 1937. More than 40pc of the current workforce have come through an internal apprenticeship course. It exports to all four corners of the globe with key markets including Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, South America and Australia. Group turnover stands at circa £10.5m. It’s broad product range can be broken down into 14 groups, made through a number of different machining processes – milling, turning, mill-turning and grinding. Within the glass container industry Lattimer has two key targets – the glass factories and also the OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) who sell into the factories.