Scottish gear maker expands capacity

A Fife-based company has demonstrated its confidence in the manufacturing sector by staking its future on new machinery and an extension to its premises.

A Fife-based company has demonstrated its confidence in the manufacturing sector by staking its future on new machinery and an extension to its premises with help from Scottish Enterprise Fife and Business Gateway.

The Chancellor and Dunfermline East MP, Gordon Brown, officially opened the GBP 800,000 investment for industrial gear maker Lamond and Murray, which employs 30 people at its Inverkeithing base.

The new machinery will make it possible for the company to produce much higher specification products and allow it to access new markets.

Business Gateway and Scottish Enterprise Fife have played an important part in getting the company to this stage.

They have helped with sales and marketing activity and worked closely with the Scottish Executive which assisted the project with a Regional Selective Assistance (RSA) offer of GBP 150,000.

The RSA offer is linked to the creation or safeguarding of 14 jobs.

This has led to the company forecasting an increase in turnover from GBP 1.7 million last year to GBP 2 million in 2004 and a continued rise in turnover of between 10 and 15% over the next few years.

It has already started to explore new markets, winning work with gearbox manufacturers and planning to target several other industries where there is a requirement for high specification gears.

It's a far cry from when the company was started in the mid 1920s by Walter Murray and Charles Lamond, the grandfather of current directors Iain and Alistair Lamond, to manufacture equipment to haul trucks out of mines.

The company was run in this way for a number of years but, when the mining industry started to decline, the decision to start making gears proved to be a shrewd one.

80 years on and the company has weathered the much publicised downturn in the manufacturing industry well.

Iain Lamond said: "The market has contracted around us but we have managed to survive by chasing contracts throughout the UK and other parts of the world".

"The mainstay of our work has been service related and we pride ourselves in providing quick deliveries, often when customers are in a breakdown situation".

"This new machine will give us a marvellous opportunity to grow the business and secure the future of Lamond and Murray".

"Business Gateway and Scottish Enterprise Fife have been tremendously supportive and are helping us realise our ambitions".

Joe Noble, Chief Executive, Scottish Enterprise Fife, said: "The economic future of Fife will, to a large part, be dependant on small, dynamic and innovative companies which can predict changing market demand and change their strategy accordingly".

"I am delighted that Lamond and Murray has prepared itself for the challenges of the future and I am particularly pleased that both the Gateway and SE Fife have been able to help it access significant amounts of RSA.

"I would encourage any other Fife companies in similar circumstances to look to the future and contact the Gateway in the first instance for advice and support".

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