MJD completes £500k expansion

The move follows an MBO in January that resulted in managing director Paul Barker-Smith, who has been with the firm for 19 years and previously owned a 40% stake in the business, acquiring the remaining 60% from his fellow stakeholders.

As part of the new investment the company has leased a 743sqm facility in Corby, Northamptonshire and installed a new Océ Arizona 50XT UV flatbed printer, a Zünd G3 digital cutter and a Kippax semi-automatic screen printer.

The company has employed an apprentice who will be based at Corby, while a number of staff from MJD's existing facility in neigbouring Uppingham, Rutland have moved over to man the site.

Barker-Smith said that he expected to take on at least two additional staff in the near future as the site worked towards full production.

MJD, which designs and manufactures POS displays for the likes of Boots, Asda, Superdrug and Tesco, will retain its Rutland headquarters. The site houses the company's creative design studio, back office administration and vac-form and screenprinting operations, which use three large vacuum form machines, screen printing facilities and a web-fed digital printer.

Initially specialising in plastic vacuum forming, the company's POS production capabilities have evolved in the past few years to comprise 50% card and 50% plastic vacuum forming, but while it previously outsourced the majority of its card POS manufacturing, the new site will allow the company to bring more in-house.

"It gives us the capability to expand more and more into that area because that is definitely the way that the industry is moving," said Barker-Smith.

"It's very exciting. A lot has happened in a short space of time since I took ownership of the company and this investment is really laying the foundations for a sustainable future for MJD," he added.

The company achieved a £3m turnover in 2012/13 and is targeting £3.5m this year. And Barker-Smith said that, as part of an ambitious growth strategy, he intended to double that in three years.

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