Weishaupt are a leading manufacturer of gas, oil and duel-fuel burners widely used across the world. With a history dating back to 1932, the company has a well-established reputation for reliability and quality. Oil burner manufacturing began in 1952, with the first gas burner produced 60 years ago in 1963.
Craig, Sean James & Dan undertook a training session at Weishaupt UK HQ, Willenhall in December 2022. The Training focussed on the WG gas burner range which offer a wide capacity range up to 700kW, and with excellent programmable air gas/ration emissions performance.
Commenting on the successful training session, Craig said “Weishaupt gas burners are a great example of high-quality German engineering, and have very good spares availability, so we ‘re always happy to recommend them to our clients where the application fits.”
Craig has always been keen to roll up his sleeves and support the team, and he’s now gone one step further having spent the last 18 months working through the commercial gas training programme to become a Gas Safe Registered Commercial Gas Technician.
This doesn’t mean he’s about to desert his responsibilities as Manging Director, but means he can help out at times of peak demand or emergency call outs.
As Craig says “It’s very hard to recruit decent Commercial Gas Technicians at the moment, and freelance Technicians are also in high demand, so it just seemed sensible to get my own qualifications and be able to support the field team when required. At Fairburn we pride ourselves on the service we give to our customers, including working weekends and so if I can provide some back up to the front-line team it means we won’t let anyone down, even in periods of high demand.”
If you are interested in joining the Fairburn team, please visit the careers page of our website for details of current vacancies.
As energy and almost every other cost of production rises at rates we haven’t seen for a generation, many manufacturers are scutinising their costs looking for opportunities to make savings. In previous downturns, some businesses have chosen to cut maintenance. At face value, it’s an easy decision; move away from paying a regular fixed fee and only pay out when something absolutely needs fixing.
However, that is often a false economy. Moving away from proactive, planned maintenance will push a manufacturing plant back to a reactive approach to maintenance where parts are replaced or mended when they break. This inevitably results in more unexpected failures, unplanned breakdowns, unpredictable repairs and a rapidly spirally amount of downtime, with all the costs of idle plant and the potential damage to customer relationships. For many manufacturers, even one hour of unplanned downtime can be hugely expensive.
More enlightened manufacturers realise that good maintenance actually saves them money. Not just the reduction in unplanned breakdowns and downtime, but in a number of other ways. Installing secondary gas metering can identify opportunities to improve energy efficiency. Monitoring key expensive assets ensures they are replaced at exactly the right time, when their performance is deteriorating but before they break gets the maximum value out of the assets and keeps the whole production process running at optimal levels.
In addition, well-maintained production equipment enjoys a longer life, delaying the capital cost of replacement. In a climate of rising interest rates, securing finance and meeting more expensive repayments is a much more challenging situation than in recent years.
For more information about our approach to maintenance and the benefits that your business could enjoy, you can download our free white paper – The Asset Management Journey, or you can contact us directly through the contact form or give us a call on 01886 358025.
A fantastic end to the motorcycle racing season for our sponsored riders ended in the last few weeks.
Mike Leeson (pictured above) finished second in the last race of his season to claim the Mallory Trophy 601-1300cc championship and second place in the Mallory Allcomers Trophy.
We’re really proud of your achievements Mikey – you absolutely smashed it!
Cam Fraser (pictured above with Craig Carr) had a fantastic finish to his season leapfrogging from 3rd place to 2nd in the Bennetts British Superbikes GP2 Cup.
Cam’s 2nd and 3rd place finishes in the last two races saw him finish 17 points clear of third place and narrow the gap on the championship leader.
Fantastic stuff Cam, we can’t wait for next season!
Our latest apprentice to join the team is Jay Bovill. Jay is working with James Brown, one of our Senior Gas Technicians. Jay is new to the gas industry, so in addition to working alongside James, he will be studying at the Smart Gas Assessment, Training & Apprenticeship Centre in Ashbourne, Derbyshire.
Outside of work, Jay is an accomplished BMX rider, who was selected for the British team that took part in the World Championship in France this summer. Jay was the only member of the Junior Men’s team to make it through to day two of the competition and eventually progressed to the semi-final and an overall 5th place.
Craig Carr, Managing Director of Fairburn Heating said “We are delighted to welcome Jay to our team. His achievements in BMX riding demonstrate a level of commitment and resilience that will serve him well in the gas industry.”
Jay commented “I’m already enjoying the mix of practical experience working with James and the training with Smart Gas. I’m hoping to make the Olympic BMX team in 2024, but it’s important to me to have skills that will enable me to build a career to support my riding and provide a successful future for me after my BMX days are over. I’m grateful to Fairburn for providing that opportunity.”
If you or someone you know would be interested in an apprenticeship with Fairburn or a more senior role, please check the careers page.
With two wins the last meeting and 2nd place or better in every race this season, our sponsored rider Mikey Leeson is not surprisingly leading the Mallory Trophy 601-1300cc championship going in to the final race meeting of the season on 23rd October.
With a 35 point lead over his nearest rival, he is in a very strong position and he also leads the Mallory Allcomers Trophy by a single point. However, with double points available for the final round, we’re keeping our fingers firmly crossed that Mikey maintains his super consistency through both races and takes the titles he so richly deserves.
Go smash it Mikey, we can’t wait to come and cheer you on this Sunday!
Heatwaves, traffic jams, queues at airports and ferry terminals can only mean one thing – it’s the summer holiday season! And so it’s the time of year when many manufacturing plants have their annual shutdown, especially in the automotive sector.
So, while our clients’ workforces are taking a well-earned holiday, our engineers are carrying out planned maintenance. Our approach to planned maintenance, driven by monitoring of process heating systems and their key components means we can get a lot of routine gas burner maintenance work completed when the plants are shut, reducing the impact on productivity and the cost of unplanned breakdowns.
The same principle applies to the other industry sectors we work in. Using data to predict component failures means we can work with the manufacturing teams to plan maintenance at a time that best suits their demand schedule. Very often, we can carry out maintenance work at weekends or overnight to minimise the impact on the smooth running of the factory.
If you are frustrated by the number of unplanned breakdowns to your process heating system, please give us a call on 01886 358 025, we’ll be happy to show you why we believe process heating should never cause downtime.
In January 2019, Craig Carr the managing director of Fairburn Heating Solutions could have been forgiven for ordering a crate of champagne to celebrate the achievement of a three-year growth plan with a doubling of turnover in that period.
However, Craig recognised that just as he encourages Fairburn clients to adopt his proactive approach to process heating maintenance, he needed to apply the same principles to his own business. Rather than “resting on their laurels”, Fairburn needed to identify the future threats and opportunities and build a plan for the next three years.
Honda of the UK Manufacturing
In conjunction with a business development strategy consultant, Ian Harris; Craig reviewed the commercial performance and realised that the automotive industry accounted for over 50% of turnover in 2018.
This did not surprise Ian who had seen similar situations in other high-growth companies. “Businesses that experience strong growth often find it is driven by a specific area of their customer base. Client satisfaction quickly builds a good reputation, which spreads through networking, social media and key contacts changing employers. Prospective new clients often like to hire companies with experience in their industry and the growing business can quickly find the customer mix has been skewed disproportionately towards a single industry” commented Ian.
So, after a very brief period of celebrating their success, by the end of January Craig and his team began planning the next three years with a firm commitment to reducing the dependence on the automotive industry through developing new business in other sectors. By the end of the first quarter of 2019, Honda (a long-term client of Fairburn) had announced the planned closure of their Swindon manufacturing plant, which further strengthened Craig’s determination to grow business in different client industries.
Within a few months Craig had recruited Niki Ashdown as sales manager and together with Ian and his marketing agency, Aardvark Marketing they created a new business strategy to win new clients outside the automotive sector. Feedback from existing Fairburn clients in other industries revealed that they had broadly the same reasons for choosing to work with Craig and his team as the automotive clients. Proactive maintenance, delivering reduced unplanned breakdowns, extended life of critical assets and better lifetime return on investment from manufacturing equipment is equally relevant in all well-run manufacturing companies.
Craig decided that if he could emulate the growth Fairburn had enjoyed in the automotive sector with another one or two carefully selected industries, the diversification objective could be achieved more efficiently than chasing every opportunity that came along.
Food manufacturing was chosen as the first target, as Craig explains “we already had some experience in the food sector, and it seemed to have different dynamics to automotive. If times are hard people might choose not to buy a new car, but everybody has to eat.”
Although the Covid pandemic made acquisition of new clients quite challenging, Craig and his team persevered through 2020 and by the time the Honda plant actually closed in mid 2021, Fairburn had made a number of key breakthroughs into the food industry, working with leading companies in savoury snack manufacturing, salmon smoking and vegetable processing in addition to projects in other sectors.
Reflecting on the company performance in 2021, Craig said “The decision to diversify has really paid off. The turbulence of the last three years would have been hard for us to survive, but we had a good 2021, and our automotive turnover is now less than 20% of our total income.” When asked to name the critical success factors, Craig is typically modest, “We just realised that a gas burner doesn’t know or care whether it’s working in a car plant or a crisp fryer. Our design, installation and maintenance services are equally relevant to every process heating system in any industry; we just needed to choose which ones to target and get our message out there.”
So, have the champagne corks been popped at last? “We’re proud of what we have achieved together and have celebrated as a team” says Craig, “and now we can build on these broader foundations and drive Fairburn Heating Solutions forward into the next exciting phase of the company development.” Let’s drink to that!
The British GP2 Championship could not have got off to a better start for Cameron Fraser, sponsored by Fairburn Heating Solutions. In the very first race of the season on Saturday, Cam qualified in second place, and then after battling all race, he grabbed the lead going into the final lap and held on for the victory.
Cam is pictured above after the race with Craig Carr and his trophy.
Unfortunately, after again running in 1st place in GP2 class, in the second race, Cam was hit from behind by another rider and crashed out, but overall, it was a very encouraging weekend with some great lap times.
Craig Carr, Managing Director of Fairburn Heating Solutions said “It was great to be at Silverstone to see Cam ride and a well-deserved win in the first race was everything we could have hoped for. The bigger Fairburn stickers seem to have make a big difference!”
At Fairburn Heating Solutions, Managing Director Craig Carr and his team have noticed an increase in enquiries relating to Commercial Heating Systems. Craig commented “Many companies have realised they need to try to cut their energy usage in the face of spiralling costs. They don’t want to waste heat and they are finding that the increased energy costs are significantly changing the lifetime cost and return on investment (ROI) assumptions made when their systems were designed and installed.”
Many companies have commercial heating equipment which uses old technology and there is scope for improving it and/or introducing a more rigorous maintenance regime to maximise efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
Typical venues that the Fairburn team have been invited to look at include warehouses and larger leisure facilities such as gyms, sports halls and swimming pools. There is also a greater focus on commercial heating system design in new buildings. Mechanical and Electrical (M&E) Systems contractors can benefit from talking to commercial heating design & installation experts when designing and building large facilities such as warehousing for the growing online fulfilment industry. Traditionally, these kind of constructions use radiant heating, but good design can significantly reduce running costs.
One of the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic has been an increase in ventilation in many buildings, which of course tends to increase the heating costs.
The experienced team of gas engineers at Fairburn have expertise in installing and maintaining a wide range of commercial heating equipment, including the use of roof-mounted destratification fans like the one shown (left) to push the warmer air back to a lower level, utilise heat generated by lighting and machinery and reduce pre-heat time.
All Fairburn projects benefit from an accepted best practice approach to the whole project including testing and handover. Robust project management ensures high-quality work is completed on-time and within the agreed budget. Our engineers are available to work on a 7-day basis to minimise the impact on our clients’ normal operations.
If your commercial heating system costs are too high, or suffering unplanned breakdowns, or if you are considering installing a new commercial heating solution, please give us a call on 01886 358025, email us or use the contact form on our website.
More enlightened manufacturers realise that good maintenance actually saves them money. Not just the reduction in unplanned breakdowns and downtime, but in a number of other ways. Installing secondary gas metering can identify opportunities to improve energy efficiency. Monitoring key expensive assets ensures they are replaced at exactly the right time, when their performance is deteriorating but before they break gets the maximum value out of the assets and keeps the whole production process running at optimal levels.
For more information about our approach to maintenance and the benefits that your business could enjoy, you can 
Although the Covid pandemic made acquisition of new clients quite challenging, Craig and his team persevered through 2020 and by the time the Honda plant actually closed in mid 2021, Fairburn had made a number of key breakthroughs into the food industry, working with leading companies in savoury snack manufacturing, salmon smoking and vegetable processing in addition to projects in other sectors.
Typical venues that the Fairburn team have been invited to look at include warehouses and larger leisure facilities such as gyms, sports halls and swimming pools. There is also a greater focus on 