One new Trunki will be rolling off a new production line every 45 seconds by the end of the month – the first generation of the iconic children's ride-on suitcase to be made in England. It fulfils a long term dream of Britol-based designer and creator Rob Law to bring production from China to Britain.
Rob, who famously persisted after being rejected by the millionaires on TV's Dragon's Den six years ago, now sells Trunkis in 62 countries and turned over £6m last year, clearing a profit of £1m.
But his firm, which employs just 23 people at its Bristol HQ, has manufactured Trunki only in China and the US. Now Rob has cut a deal with Inject Plastics of Totnes to take over production, thereby reducing order lead times from 120 days to 30, allowing the sales team to react to market demands more quickly and give a promise of ‘NOOS’ (never out of stock).
Fittingly the first British made Trunki to roll off the production line will be the licenced Team GB and London 2012 Trunki – it will be stamped Design in Bristol, Made in England.
Rob is keen to spread the word about UK manufacturing because he says that despite it being more expensive than China, there are so many tangible business benefits which outweigh the current trend of just focusing on lowest prices. These include controlling costs – prices in China are constantly rising because of factors such as inflation, labour and currency appreciation while the price of plastic is the same the world.
He said: "The UK can stand head and shoulders above China, creating really innovative and well engineered products that are more sustainable, drive better business performance and build stronger brand value; I’m thrilled to be bringing it back home.”
Setting up production has required significant investment – the cost of the British-made tooling was six times more than in China. But efficiency has been vastly improved to make it cost effective to produce all plastic parts in the UK. Further investment was required to re-engineer completely the parts for cost effective Western assembly and this has enabled Rob to make a much greener product by eliminating the 25 metal components and all adhesives, leaving just two types of plastic to recycle at end of its life.
He was, however, disappointed that there was "zero" government support to help with the move back to UK. He said: "After months of researching, getting passed around numerous government departments I couldn't find a single grant to help! I was more than a little bit astounded after hearing Cameron and Osborne preaching that the UK should be doing more manufacturing. This coupled with the Annual Investment Allowance, being cut, which could have offset our investment in tooling and allowed us to bring more products back to the UK for production.”
He thinks the government should support projects like this with tax breaks because "although UK manufacturing isn’t about employing lots of people on long production lines carrying out repetitive jobs, we’re using more robotics and lean manufacturing, at the end of the day I would rather be paying a UK factory for products and see the cash go back into the UK economy than see it going off shore.”
His next goal for Trunki is to set up a recognised educational programme to provide UK schools and colleges with structured tours of the factory in Devon and the head office in Bristol to inspire the next generation of engineers, designers and entrepreneurs.
By the end of 2012, Rob's company, Magmatic, aims to be able to say that 100% of Trunki’s on the UK High Street will be made in Britain. It will, however, keep current manufacturing hubs in China and the US to service local markets while aiming to supply Europe from the Totnes factory.
