Family firm finds itself in demand

Feb 9 2009 by Iain Laing, The Journal

A FAMILY-owned sawmill is bucking the national trend and launching a recruitment exercise to deal with increasing demand for its products.

Northumberland’s A&J Scott, one of the largest home-grown sawmills in the UK, has taken on 15 new employees with the possibility of further jobs being created as orders for its timber increase.

The firm, which is based in Wooperton, Northumberland, is also cutting back considerably on wastage in its setting-up processes thanks to assistance from lean green experts from regional manufacturing task force MAS-NEPA.

Engineers from the programme have helped reduce set-up time on one of the saws from over 700 seconds to 140 seconds, which not only maximises machine capacity, but could potentially save the company over £39,000 a year.

This process is being rolled out to machines across the company shopfloor, potentially saving A&J Scott tens of thousands of pounds.

Established back in 1960 and operating from the original site, A&J Scott employs over 100 people and is one of the country’s leading softwood saw-millers and hardwood round timber merchants.