As the Americans say: it's the ultimate! You take voluntarily redundancy from a firm you've worked for for 23 years, you go into partnership in a logistics company and end up taking over a building previously owned by the original business!

It couldn't happen if you tried!

But, it did - to Frank Sweeney, a former materials manager with Philips. Last year, he jumped at the chance of voluntary redundancy in order to go into partnership with Trevor Lawrence and together they have built up Stanford Logistics.

Said Frank: "Trevor started the company himself and I knew him through Philips. When I made the decision to leave, we decided to go into partnership and it's worked really well. We've both got a lot of experience in different areas of the business which means our skills complement each other."

Based in Blantyre Industrial Estate, the company offers a logistics service to a range of companies. Basically, it means they offer a warehousing, storage and distribution service for all types of products and all types of companies. That's the basic service.....of course, they offer so very much more.

Trevor, whose background is in the service industry, said: "We can take components from a company, kit them up and then send them to the production line. We'll also take finished goods and supply them to our clients customer base. We supply the full logistics service, everything.

"Our customers are varied and all have very different needs. We ensure we are as flexible as we need to be so that we are able to adapt easily and give our customers the quality service they expect and need."

Since starting up, they have been nominated for the 'Best New Member' award for the UKWA (United Kingdom Warehousing Association) Awards 2000 and the company has gone from strength to strength. Their success is growing fast, so much so, that they have been forced to look for bigger premises in the area.

And, yes, you've guessed it, they have taken on the 100,000 sq ft M Building within the Philips factory in Hamilton!

Bigger premises also mean new staff and they are hoping to boost their employee levels from 16 to 24.

Frank said: "The Council has been really good from the beginning. The Company Development staff helped us obtain a Business Ventures Grant which allowed us to renovate our headquarters in Blantyre Industrial Estate. We also received assistance from the Small Business Gateway Hamilton to develop a new computer programme for our stock control system. It has revolutionised the way we carry out our day-to-day business."

The company now plans to extend their customer base and are hopeful of obtaining a contract to carry out the logistics for a multi-million pound American company.

The future looks very bright!

For information on the Business Venture Fund, contact: 01698 455144

Business South Lanarkshire - Spring 2001

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