We’re delighted that over 87% of products within our portfolio are manufactured in the UK using the latest manufacturing technology (up from 82% last year) ensuring the highest level of quality. This is reflected in the guarantees we offer.
As a manufacturer who manages our own production plant in the UK, this means that Dams can adapt production levels to reflect sales trends, ensuring that all standard items are consistently available from stock. That’s why every year we continually invest significantly in expanding our production plant with new equipment and additional trained personnel to manufacture the extended portfolio and keep pace with demand. The more processes we can bring in house, the more we can control our overheads as well as our quality.
Decades of tradition and know-how go into the production of office furniture at Dams. Manufacturing in the UK also means that we are protecting and developing the skills needed for the office furniture industry of the future, ensuring that we create a legacy of quality British-made products that are fully traceable and built to last.
Dams UK manufacturing operations are made up of a wood mill and upholstery factory:
In the last year, Dams wood factory produced over 2 million wooden panels. The main element of office furniture produced in our wood mill is melamine faced chipboard (MFC) and we’re committed to procuring timber and timber products from independently verified sources. All of the particle board used by Dams is FSC (Forestry Stewardship Council) compliant, which is a non-profit organisatios concerned with ensuring the responsible and sustainable management of forests.
In October 2018, Dams opened our new, multi-million-pound upholstery factory at the head office site in Knowsley, Merseyside. Today our upholstery department processes over 100,000 upholstered seating and screen products, which is increasing year-on-year. All the foam used by Dams has also passed the rigorous Crib 5 test, we only use environmentally friendly, water based adhesives in our manufacturing processes, with high quality fabrics for total traceability on every order.
Over the last year we have taken delivery of a two new SCM Morbidelli drill for our wood factory which drills boards from all angles, guaranteeing an exceptional quality finish and absolute precision while improving our cycle times. We’ve replacing our Biesse angle plant with a Homag saw, and we’ve also installed an additional SCM Stefani double sided edge bander which will perform all the functions our existing Homag Edgeteq double sider can do and more!
One of the measures we’ve recently improved is our dust & fume collection system in our manufacturing facility by applying technology and controls from our partners Ecogate. Air quality, electricity use, noise levels - all of them are improved. The direct savings in electricity that result from the installation of our Ecogate system improves the lives of our customers, the performance of the businesses, and the health of our planet.
