Posted by Andrew on 01/03/2022
We are so impressed with the STAS Factory in Romania we would like to show you around the inside. This purpose built factory joined the STAS family of 3 other factories 5 years ago, and is used to construct Newton's new steel chassis trailers. Mostly robot construction methods and state of the art engineering - even the bodies are robot painted! There is no higher quality product for the British market. It is all made under one brand new roof and does not emerge into daylight, blinking - until it is painted. Newton - Keeping it REAL.
Posted by Andrew on 21/01/2022
Homework problems - a problem shared is a problem halved....
My kids have long learned to avoid asking Dad for help. This time it was Dad asking for help. I wanted to audit what values both employees and suppliers believed Newton has or stands for. I was genuinely warmed by the responses. Our purpose has always been to sell Honesty not Trailers. This value does come up throughout the audit. As our washman Duncan responded:
'What's on the tin is in the tin'.
I'll take that. Thanks Duncan - I'll hand that to Teacher.
Posted by Andrew on 18/01/2022
It is good to be back - can you have too much Christmas? My Christmas socks fit and the new underpants could have done being one size more generous. Boris might have won his Covid bet - politics versus science. He took Scenario F and ran with it - well his luck was due to change. If he is right we are in for a pretty dicey January and then nothing but sunshine from February - so that will give the market a lift. So please form and orderlely queue and buy our tipping trailers.
On a less flippant note, supply side issues are still troublesome. As manufacturers solve one issue - say tyres - then the next one is revealed - say landing legs. Like restauranteurs price: 30% cost of food/ 30% labour/ 30% overhead - so to do manufacturers: 80% materials/ 20% labour. Clearly steel and aluminium World prices are important. They have risen dramatically and many of our suppliers are pricing purely by fear and guesswork - or not offering prices at all. Worst of all, some are pricing incorrectly and then changing them afterwards - ie retrospectively - now that sends panic up the chain into the dealer network. The dealer network (Newton et al) then act as a shock absorber until overwhelmed. The prices then get passed on. So it is entirely possible that there is another 5 to 10% price inflation yet to be revealed from January to June this year. My fear is that this will not be seen equally across the market and that will be the 'competition zone' for the year. Customers yelling at Dealers - and Dealers yelling at Manufacuturers. What about a bit of peace love and harmony?
And a small shout out to my one blog follower - Pieter - Jan a quote for you:
“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.”
Mark Twain.
Posted by Andrew on 04/01/2022
Twas the night before Christmas and Santa's little elves are still hard at it at Newton. As a kid Christmas was a long build up killing, plucking and drawing the turkeys and capons and then handing them over. Often the last bird left the farm late Christmas Eve - so a build up of stress before the finish and then RELAX. So no turkeys now, but a big thank you to the team here for working all the way through to lunchtime this Christmas Eve. The handover team have put in a big shift in 2021 and 3 new trailers handed over today - so worth the grunt. The workshop crew are working through next week to make the shop sparkly for the New Year start - thank you to them too. 2022 is going to be so good - cannot wait!!
Posted by Andrew on 24/12/2021
