International supplier of body-in-white products and services Stadco, says it did not lose a single day to industrial action despite massive reorganisation at the depth of the recession that saw 40% of its workforce made redundant.
The UK-based operation – that officially opened its Telford site yesterday (14 July) creating 50 new jobs – underwent a torrid time at the peak of the downturn in 2009 – a period Stadco sales and marketing director Dinos Andreou described as a “complete decimation” for the company’s customer schedules.
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“The supply chain became almost unmanageable – as cash became a valuable commodity it was cash that became difficult,” he said. “There was almost a situation where we were almost predicting a complete choking of the supply chain.
“We needed to take some pretty firm action – we lost 40% of our direct workforce and removed layers of management. All of our focus was about survival.
Employment levels were now back to pre-recession levels noted Andreou with an average of three shifts across the group, which has five sites in the UK.
Three out those five sites are unionised, but did not undergo industrial strife despite the drastic headcount pruning of two years ago.
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By GlobalData“The best way of trying to measure it is that we did not miss a day through industrial action during the worst times,” Stadco managing director Dermot Sterne told just-auto.
“We want people to think: ‘They had to do what they did and they acted fairly’ – we are back to 968 workers at the five sites.”
Stadco remains bullish about its future prospects with Jaguar Land Rover its largest customer performing well, while Ford is its next largest client.
The Tier 1 supplier also provides components for BMW’s Mini at Oxford, GM’s van production at Luton and its Astra vehicle at Ellesmere Port.
Stadco operates out of five UK sites including Telford, Shrewsbury, Powys, Coventry and Castle Bromwich. It is forecasting a EUR215m (US$305m) turnover for this year, although the net estimate is not known.
