The UK arm of a US-owned global filtration manufacturer has moved to larger premises in a £350,000 expansion after doubling its turnover. Oberlin Filter produce state-of-the-art automatic pressure filtration units for companies in heavy engineering, medical, aerospace, surface treatment and automotive sectors.
Its machines assist in the production of industrial gas turbine blades, vanes and segments within aerospace, gears, valves, valve seats and crankshafts within automotive sectors as well as joint replacement devices such as knee and hips in the medical industry.
Oberlin Filter is owned by a private, family-run business, based in the USA, with another production facility in Germany. They began production in Aycliffe in 2002, from a small unit on Gurney Way then as the business expanded it took over three neighbouring units.
After outgrowing them, the company has now moved to new 11,000 sq ft premises on Hurworth Road in a relocation costing £350,000, which has included the £40,000 purchase of a 10-tonne moving crane from nearby firm Durham Lifting.
The new facility will enable Oberlin Filter and its Aycliffe team of seven to maintain recent growth after doubling turnover to £1.8m in the last few years and explore new markets.
The firm’s sales engineer Mike Johnson said: “Essentially we design and manufacture automatic pressure filtration units for any kind of liquids that need solids removing. We work with companies in chemical processing, sulphur recovery, edible oil, pharmaceutical and water treatment or sludge dewatering – basically any liquid/solid separation, particularly when either has a re-usable or re-saleable value.
“Our systems clean the liquid while the solids are discharged and dried automatically – and we bring every part of this very technical and scientific system together in-house.”
As well as manufacturing filtration systems, Oberlin Filter’s team boasts a range of other skills at its new Aycliffe operation, including electrical panel building, welding, fabrication, control system design and PLC programming, while it also has a new large spray booth. The sale of consumables, principally filter media, is another area of valued growth within the business.
The company’s main line of work comes with the production of filtration systems, costing between £50,000 and £200,000 per unit.
Mike added: “There are many others, who manufacture filtration units, but our technology and experience allows us to penetrate dynamic and evolving, precision based markets. Typically industries where metal working requires grinding and high pressure, high volume coolant control management.
“We’ve established several new clients in the aerospace and medical sectors in recent years after recognising these markets as growth areas for us.
“We hit £1.8m turnover a couple of years ago and are manufacturing on average 12 filtration systems a year and we’re currently working on our 100th build in Newton Aycliffe.
“The short-term aim is to maintain current growth over the next couple of years. The long-term goal is to develop active business relationships with further grinding machine manufacturers beyond the three-fold increase of the last three years and other key market areas such as hot frying oil, within the food industry, water treatment, sulphur recovery and pharmaceutical.”
• Call Oberlin Filter on 01325 317900, email Mike Johnson at mwj@oberlinfilter.co.uk or for more details go to www.oberlinfilter.com
(l to r): Oberlin Filter project manager Mark Blewitt, managing director Alistair Jameson and sales engineer Mike Johnson.
