Jun 29 2007
Office and factory floor workers rolled up their sleeves and beat the South Yorkshire floods in true "Dunkirk-style" this week to save thousands of pounds worth of production and an unprecedented disaster at the Wombwell plant of Windowstyle UK, part of the Style Group, the UK's largest independent PVCu replacement window and door manufacturer and retailer.
Windowstyle UK is the local area's largest single employer, with nearly 600 full time staff working 24 hours a day in 3 shifts. Both office workers and factory floor staff watched in disbelief as the flood water started flowing into their offices and towards the factory floor. Realising that if the water reached the office based computer system it would halt and ruin all the invaluable machinery and equipment to keep production meeting the demands of its subsidiary, Safestyle UK, they waded their way through setting up barriers and frantically pumping out the water.
Nick Lilburn, Managing Director of Windowstyle, explained: "We quickly realised that if the water flooded the sales offices then our IT system would be totally ineffective, which would cause a complete shutdown and disaster for the whole factory and our new glass toughening plant on the same site. We produce more than 10,000 window and door frames every week for our subsidiary, Safestyle UK and that would mean a snowballing effect throughout the whole Group.
"As a result both our office and factory floor personnel showed an excellent spirit and, with a "Dunkirk-style" attitude for more than 24 continuous hours in knee deep and even deeper flood water, developed a pumping system and built barriers with sandbags and anything else to hand.
"We do have a drill which we practise regularly in case of emergencies and it certainly helped on this occasion because the staff showed magnificent spirit and incredible strength to beat the water. We did lose a day's production but without the existence of our disaster recovery plan and the staff who worked in water up to three feet deep at times it could have been many, many times worse for everyone."