Made in Yorkshire member's Cardinal Ltd recently won Bradford Manufacturer of the Year award at Bradford Means Business Awards.
Yorkshire based company Cardinal manufacture and create interiors/built environments, and will soon be celebrating their 30th anniversary. The company prides itself on meeting and exceeding clients’ needs cost-effectively and on time, supplying to a diverse spread of sectors including retail through to healthcare and leisure.
Cardinal have made significant investments into the company as well as producing new procedures to allow the company to thrive. Dean Anderson is the Client Director for Cardinal, and said they have made numerous investments within the company to generate improvements:
“We have heavily invested in new technology, including design technology and virtual reality which allows us to materially affect the design process for retailers or clients. It saves customers time, costs and brings speed to market as there is no waste on prototyping, thereby allowing easier and quicker decisions.”
Another of the leading reasons why Cardinal may have won Bradford Manufacture of the year is the contribution to staff development and training, and generally investing in people involved within the company:
“We have invested in courses and training for our people, as well as looking at our values and how we deal with our clients. We base our values around transparency, honesty and collaborative working.”
The company has also diversified into making bathroom pods recognising the ongoing demand for off-site manufacture solutions. Investments have, and are being, made to improve production efficiency to enable this element to thrive, Dean said:
“We have invested in new welding technologies, spray booths and upgraded the facilities around the pod manufacture. We currently make around 20 of these a week and one of our aspirations is to make around 100 of these a week within the next 12 months.”
Tim Considine, Managing Director of Cardinal, suggests another reason the company may have won this prestigious award is due to their loyalty to Bradford, he said:
“We have been in Bradford a long time, being loyal to the local supply base and maintaining employment within the Bradford area. It may be argued that the retail manufacturing is a struggling sector, but we thrive because we are constantly diversifying.”
With uncertainty over Brexit, Tim advises companies within the manufacturing sector to continue to innovate and diversify:
“We don’t truly know what Brexit is going to mean for any of us, we can only deal with what we can control. We must utilise our skill sets and continue to diversify and innovate in order to combat market conditions.”