why so many have gone the
other way.
“Even if it costs you a bit
more to manufacture in the
UK, what you gain from doing
it in the control aspect and
the timings definitely has a
lot of value associated to it.
Hopefully it’s something a lot
of other companies will do, as
it adds so much to the UK’s
manufacturing industry. To
date, we’ve found it to be a very
positive move, even though
it’s only been a short period of
time. Everyone is very excited
by the move.”
Pandemic pressure
They have every right to be
excited. The factory contains
some equipment more
commonly seen in automotive
plants, including a 20-metrelong
rolling conveyor, where
operators can build each bike as
it goes along the line.
In ‘normal’ times, installing
such a piece of equipment
would be a major undertaking.
For starters, no company in
the UK produces them, so the
brothers had to import the
equipment from a specialist
manufacturer in Germany.
Fitting it out then became a
serious headache, as James
explains.
“Normally, we’d just get a
local sparky to come and help
install it – but we couldn’t do
COVER STORY SEPTEMBER 2020
Cue somewhat of a lucky break. On a routine
fact-finding tour of a bicycle frame factory, James
and Lyle began talking to a couple of their fellow
visitors. It quickly turned out that they, too, were
brothers, and had founded Sweden’s biggest bike
manufacturer. Instantly, the group hit it off.
“A year or so after meeting, we decided to
team up,” explains James. “We liked each other’s
ethos and way of working, which is why we
remained partners for so long. There was no
complicated reason for partnering with them,
other than we liked the way they did things and
they seemed like decent guys.”
The Swedes were using a factory in Poland
to produce bikes, and the VOLT duo were given
the chance to share the facility, as well as share
designs and technology.
A forced change
While this arrangement was ideal for a fledgling
company, VOLT soon began to outgrown its
Polish surroundings, and the need for a bigger,
bespoke factory arose. Added to this was Brexit
uncertainty (for a company whose sole market
is the UK, any risk of customs hold-ups or other
disruption would have been a disaster), and
quickly the idea for a new factory in Milton
Keynes took shape.
“We’d talked about moving back to the UK
for a while, but Brexit really accelerated that,”
says James. “We took the decision to break the
partnership with our Swedish partners and set
up the first VOLT-only factory here.”
For two proud Buckinghamshire natives,
Milton Keynes was a clear choice. However, a
homecoming wasn’t the only thing that lured
them to the town, which is a key distribution hub
for many bike parts manufacturers, including
Japanese giant, Shimano. “We build our bikes
using a lot of Shimano parts, so being close to
them really helps,” explains James. “We were
one of the first bikes in the UK to incorporate a
Shimano motor into our design.”
Brexit, combined with the struggles
manufacturers with complex overseas supply
chains faced in the early days of the COVID-19
pandemic, may encourage
more manufacturers to
look at bringing production
to British shores, says James
(see box above for another
recent example).
“It won’t necessarily happen
out of a desire to do it, but
the uncertainty caused by
things like Brexit will probably
force companies’ hands,” he
says. “At VOLT, we were a
bit apprehensive about it at
first – it’s quite a challenge
and when you historically
have seen manufacturing leave
the country, encouraging it
to come back in seems a bit
counterintuitive: you question
if you’re doing the wrong thing.
That was a major psychological
barrier that we had to get over,
weighing up the pros
and cons of moving
production to the
UK and working out
VOLT bikes use
key components
from MK-based
Shimano
14 www.manufacturingmanagement.co.uk
/www.manufacturingmanagement.co.uk