The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Engineering firm plans £400,000 investment
Fife company plans equipment spend and extension
A growing Fife engineering firm is planning to invest more than £400,000 on extending its premises and buying specialist equipment.
Swan Engineering in Auchtermuchty manufactures bespoke equipment for a wide range of industries.
The company will spend £150,000 on a 14,000sq ft extension to its Station Road premises this year.
In a second phase of work Swan will construct a separate building for an in-house blasting and power coat and paint area.
Managing director Dale Swan said: “We have been steadily growing and need more space.
“We have laid the foundations and galvanised the steel for the extension in-house.
“I’m hoping the work will be completed next month.
“It will contain some of our existing equipment, such as a couple of our welding bays, and we are looking to purchase a new laser cutting machine.”
The firm has been backed with a Scottish Enterprise regional selective assistance (RSA) grant which will contribute 20% towards the cost of the firm’s expansion plans up to a total cost of £400,000.
Swan Engineering, which employs 18 staff, has recently completed its largest contract to develop a potato sorting process for IPL Ltd of Inchture.
“Tatties go over the scanner, which takes a photo of every single potato,” said Mr Swan.
“It then sends the photograph to a computer which decides which lane to put it off to.
“We bought in the scanner, which is a very specialist piece of equipment, but had to build around 25 conveyors to take potatoes to and from it.
“It was a good six-figure contract and the company has pretty much built their whole production line around this piece of equipment.”
Mr Swan said his firm had been steadily growing in terms of staff and revenue. He expects to exceed last year’s turnover figure of £1.6 million this year and hopes to increase staffing levels by a third over the next couple of years.
Lynne Baillie, business adviser for Business Gateway Fife, said: “The RSA grant awarded to Swan Engineering is a fantastic example of how Business Gateway’s connections with economic development organisations, such as Scottish Enterprise in this case, can help existing businesses to take the next step.”