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Fabrication firm has the Midas touch
The headline figure confirms that Peterborough design and fabrication firm Midas Technologies is doing well and looking to the future with confidence.
The headline figure confirms that Peterborough design and fabrication firm Midas Technologies is doing well and looking to the future with confidence.But it is a mix of design flair, engineering, ingenuity and staff enthusiasm that underscore the success.
Orders in for 2009 are up 48 per cent January to April compared to the same period in 2008. It is also the first time for many years that Midas has had a solid order book in the new year.
"We are proactive about securing new business and retaining existing customers," said managing director Mark Lock.
"The firm services a wide variety of business sectors from commerce, food and pharmaceutical to environmental and water. This is primarily why we are sustaining our current performance.
"Enthusiasm is the key at Midas, without enthusiasm we have nothing, no future. Qualifications are one thing but enthusiasm is a prerequisite to working here. I am ambitious and will set challenges for the staff – "anything is possible" and "our only limitation is imagination" are quotes we regularly use. Sometimes I can exasperate them, but they all rise to the challenge, beat it and subsequently help take the company forward for a secure future."
It's an ethos that has, and is serving the company well, to create a growing reputation for its creativity, design and engineering excellence. It rubs off on to Midas clients as all the staff enjoy working together, although it may be a bit fraught at times with tight deadlines.
The striking and innovative Sky Bar caf in Manchester, a five-tonne stainless steel "fingerprint" structure, known as the Tunstall Shard, in Stoke and a water-saving device known as Aquai-Mod have one thing in common – they are all the work of Midas Technologies.
These are just a handful of the projects, and products, that the firm has undertaken in recent years.
The ability to develop product, for example, is a major factor in "ironing out" peaks and troughs of market and sector demands.
Primary to this aim is the Aquai-Mod, which is currently undergoing trials at 11 UK water authorities, and installed in MoD establishments HMS Drake and Bovington Garrison Camp, in the west of England.
Mr Lock is awaiting an independent White Paper study on the product from the De Montfort University before looking to market it in commercial sectors.
Midas contracts can be as short as one day or, such as the Aquai-Mod, be nurtured over several years, the latter involving initial design work, proto-typing, planning, tendering, costing, manufacturing and final installation with ongoing servicing contracts.
"We keep an open mind and are always looking to develop ideas," added Mr Lock.
It's a reflection of the growing status of the organisation, which is no longer seen as "just an engineering firm".
Grand staircases, sculptures and energy-saving systems are just some of the schemes under way at the Eastern Industry site.
It seems, too, that Midas has made an impression on Manchester following the Sky Bar success – though "probably the most demanding project ever" says Mr Lock. The company currently has two ongoing projects in that city.Coming up with ideas and designs, and working with architects, Midas is working on The Juice Bar.
Distinctive in having a "mouse clock" running around its top, it is one of a number of kiosks that are being developed to enhance the Spinning Fields area of Manchester.
The city firm is also working with artist Robert Erskine, of Tunstall Shard fame, to manufacture a 35ft-high and 23-tonne public art piece, with a casting ingot underneath it, for the retail park at Openshaw, Manchester.
Built of stainless steel, it will simulate the H-frame structure of the original steam hammer invented at this site.
Midas is also involved in a 400,000 contract at the 600-flat development at Greenwich Wharf, London, which continues into next year. The company is manufacturing architectural metalwork including glass balustrades for balconies and terraces and as a result, it has developed a further product for the commercial sector.
Not only in the UK, but the Peterborough firm has also made its mark abroad, working with Kent-based The Fountain Workshop at the Nykredit Plaza, in Copenhagen, Denmark.
It is providing 480m of stainless steel pipework and channels as a fabricated nozzle system for a large water feature in the plaza.
Mr Lock added that the Denmark project may lead to future work, with The Fountain Workshop, on water features at King's Cross and St Pancras railway stations' plaza, and in Dubai.
It is all a far cry from the early days nearly a quarter of a century ago when Mr Lock, with a partner, started Midas Manufacturing, as it was then known, on a part-time basis.
It wasn't long before the firm moved to Wulfric Square, Bretton, Peterborough, where its mainstay was security systems fabrication and vehicle protection. The first employee was taken on – Gary Church on the Youth Training Scheme, who is still at Midas today, with other long- serving staff. The firm's "first break" was in 1986 when it won a Peter Brotherhood contract to manufacture stainless steel film guides for an ICI project.
It then moved to Saville Road, Westwood, expanded its operation and was awarded BS5750, one of the first small fabrication firms to achieve the then well-recognised quality assurance standard which continues today as the now international quality standard ISO 9000. Midas maintains this accreditation with the BRE (Building Research Establishment) where it also uses the research and test facilities for its high security and fire resistance products.
The business rapidly outgrew the site at Saville Road, and so moved to Mereview, in Yaxley.
It was 1992, Mr Lock, now "on his own" as managing director of the firm, had 10 staff and the business continued to grow rapidly. There are now more than 30 staff at Midas.A few years later, Dounrea Nuclear power station required the design and building of a 15m-long special purpose decommissioning heater which couldn't be accommodated at Yaxley.
Mr Lock "found", via a valued customer, the current premises, at Roundhouse Close, Eastern Industry, which could take the unit and, a short time later, moved the whole operation there.
"With the new facility, and with the size of customer we had and were aiming to secure, such as Sizewell B Nuclear power station, Glaxo and Perkins Engines to name but a few well-known plcs, targeted expectation rose several notches."
The rest, as they say, is history, but, like the company revamping its website, never becoming complacent, always improving and being proactive, also points to a more secure future.
For more information, contact Midas TechnologiesUnit A, Roundhouse Close, Eastern Industry, Peterborough. Call 01733 342600 or e-mail sales@midastech.co.uk.
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