DKM Sheetmetal celebrates 40th birthday with £600,000 present

Published by

Nicky Godding

A Stonehouse-based company is splashing out £600,000 on new automation technology to enable the company to achieve more efficient 24-hour production, and will be adding to its workforce too.

It's quite a birthday present for DKM Sheetmetal, which employs 45 people at its Oldends Industrial Estate base, and is celebrating its 40th birthday party.

DKM has grown from occupying just one of the units at Oldends to ten.

This latest move takes the company's investment in technology to in excess of £2million in the last two years.

For the past three years DKM has taken on manufacturing apprentices and expects to appoint new staff this year to meet demand.

“We have grown from 3,000 square feet and six staff to our current site of 30,000 square feet and 45 employees,” said managing director Steve Hearn.

“We run 24 hour shifts now and our turnover is around £5 million."

Steve led DKM’s transformation after being part of a buy-out of the company from its previous owners in 2004.

He works closely with co-owner Guy Goring, whose initial investment – as well as his ongoing support – was key to the transformation.

They now work with companies such as Vodafone, and BT – designing a cabinet to ensure 4G mobile coverage could be rolled out in rural areas.

Steve also paid tribute to his employees. “We are very proud of our strong and successful engineering team.”

Nicky Godding

Nicky Godding is editor of The Business Magazine. Before her journalism career, she worked mainly in public relations moving into writing when she was invited to launch Retail Watch, a publication covering retail and real estate across Europe. After some years of constant travelling, she tucked away her passport and concentrated on business writing, co-founding a successful regional business magazine. She has interviewed some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs who have built multi-million-pound businesses and reported on many science and technology firsts. She reports on the region’s thriving business economy from start-ups, family businesses and multi-million-pound corporations, to the professionals that support their growth and the institutions that educate the next generation of business leaders.