C2S Leader Insights for 2021
Neoperl Leadership Insight
From Kevin Gates – MD Neoperl UK
Neoperl UK are part of a global family-owned Swiss German group offering water saving devices to the market. Neoperl specialise in stream and flow control devices that control the flow of water through household appliances. In the UK they are one of the worlds leading manufacturers of flow regulators which come in hundreds of sizes and can be retro fitted to taps and showers throughout the home to save water.
2021 started very positively with a strong order bank for Neoperl globally. Here in the UK we are forecasting quarter one sales to be up 25% over the first quarter of last year, largely due to the rise in home improvement activity and increased sales of taps, showers and boilers from our OEM customers. The challenge for us is to ensure we meet this very high customer demand in a manufacturing environment with all our Covid safety measures strictly in place. The forward order book remains strong and market intelligence assures us that this will continue until at least the middle of the year.
In terms of keeping staff safe, those who can work from home are doing so, largely office staff and senior managers are rotating their time between work and home. A high proportion of our staff work in the manufacturing environment and we continue to ensure that all safety measures are in place like thermostatic temperature taking, disinfecting foot baths at all entrances, newly laid out social distancing workstations and a plentiful supply of PPE. We have continued with our weekly staff newsletter, strategically placed information screens around the building and use of the Kaizala App (a secure chat and messaging app allowing instant communication to the team) all to keep employees engaged and motivated. We are also just conducting an Employee Survey, Covid focused, through an independent specialist agency with a goal to keep constantly improving our support.
In terms of the rest of the year, we forecast that business will remain strong as there continues to be an increased demand in the market. Manufacturing will remain challenging and we don’t see much changing in terms of the working environment in the foreseeable future. Many of the changes that we have introduced over the year are good working practices and will remain in place indefinitely.
www.neoperl.com |
Sustainability: Everyone can now do their bit to #SaveWater
#WorldWaterDay – 22nd March 2021
Water is certainly a precious resource and we waste far too much of it in this country, but we need a behavioural change to make any real difference. We hear every day about climate change and the importance for the future in protecting our environment and most of us feel powerless in making a big difference. But #SavingWater is something we can all do easily as homeowners. It is estimated that 34% of all water used in the home is through showering and bathing and here is where the fitting of a Neoperl flow regulator or Pressure Compensating Aerator (PCA) can help. These small devices can be retrofitted and inserted at the end of a tap spout or upstream of the shower outlet, to reduce and regulate the water flow. A standard shower will produce around 18 litres of water a minute and yet an equally comfortable shower is possible from a shower head delivering around 12 litres of water. If one considers a 7-minute shower a day that’s over 15,000 litres of water saved by one person in a year. Add to that the savings that can be made by reducing the flow in bathroom and cloakroom taps, which are often just used for cleaning teeth and hands and the savings really add up. And if you’re saving the amount of water used, you’re also saving the energy that heats it!
