by Sam Brown
Well, I think it’s fair to say 2022 has been a big year for Penta! It was our first full year in our new premises which has enabled us to welcome new employees, new machines, and new customers, as well as continuing to deliver the exemplary service that our loyal customers have come to expect from us.
Back in January, there was a strong sense as a country and as a company that we were moving on from the pandemic. And whilst in many ways we have, there have nevertheless been some challenges this year that none of us could have foreseen back in the new year when we were all innocently playing Wordle and optimistic about what the year would bring.
Here at Penta, January is the last month of our financial year and it was another record breaking year for us (one we intend to top this year!). We were well set for the year ahead and we had some ambitious targets and a determined team.
The invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February was a defining moment in 2022, and one that has had a considerable impact around the world; not least for the 14 million displaced Ukrainians who have had their lives upended.
Globally there has been a significant economic impact and in March, this started to reach Penta as material became hard to source. Much of the material we buy comes from Europe and is sourced or processed in Russia and Ukraine.
As you can imagine, this did prove a real challenge for us and our customers. But as we do at Penta, we rose to the challenge, and we worked with our customers to find efficiencies to mitigate the impact of rising costs. This included our time-served engineers guiding designers in adjusting their designs to make machining more efficient – but without compromising on form, fit or function. If you’d like to read more about how we can help you keep costs down, see our previous blog post .
One particular highlight of our year was the arrival of a special new machine: the MAM 72-35V. In August we prepared the workshop ahead of its arrival; it’s a big machine and we needed to make space. In September the machine arrived and was commissioned. You may be wondering what’s so special about this machine. The MAM has allowed Penta to utilise high-flex automation – taking our manufacturing capabilities to the next level. It was a big investment for us but one that was worth making.
September was also notable for the sad passing of Her Majesty the Queen and a new Prime Minister along with the infamous ‘mini budget’ and subsequent chaos in the financial markets.
In better news, we were honoured to win the Business Growth Award at the South Central Business Awards. My leadership team colleagues and I attended a black tie event at the Ageas Bowl and were so proud to pick up the award which recognised our outstanding vision and leadership through significant and sustained growth.
We didn’t have too much time to dwell on our success though as October had more in store including yet another Prime Minister. Surging energy costs made the headlines and were a concern for businesses and individuals UK-wide as winter approached.
By this point, we had the automated MAM machine fully up and running and it proved an excellent asset for us to maximise efficiencies and pass savings on to our customers wherever possible.
In the months leading up to November, we were working on something exciting behind the scenes…our new website! The new site launched on 2nd November and it has a fresher look, is easier to navigate and enables us to show you more of us, with more photos of our team and workshop.
Which brings us nicely to the end of the year. Despite the challenges that this year has presented, things are coming together: we have new employees settling in and already making a difference and we’re recruiting for a newly created role of Production Engineering and Quality Leader to help us continue to deliver outstanding quality products and a consistent service to all customers, and we’re making the most of high-flex automation with really high levels of running (97.77% at last count – can we beat that in 2023?!).
I think you’ll agree it’s been quite a year. I’d love to say that 2023 will surely present less challenges but I think we all know that’s probably wishful thinking. The great thing is that here at Penta, we have a history of rising to the challenge and I have every confidence that we’ll continue to deliver our consistent service in 2023.
I hope you have a restful Christmas and here’s to great working relationships in 2023 and beyond.