Horizon CEO George Sly writes “What a year it’s been! We have continued to grow and develop quickly during
extremely challenging times for the manufacturing sector.
We have made some big strides in 2021 and have a lot of exciting things happening in the next 12-24 months! When we launched Horizon, we had an extremely tough decision to make, with Brexit looming – do we manufacture in the UK or in Europe? Our decision to stay in the UK is something we are very pleased with, despite some inevitable challenges along the way.
We are proud to fly the ‘Made in Britain’ flag and to employ local people in South Lincolnshire. Approximately 78% of our components are also sourced in the UK, so when you buy Horizon you really are buying British!
What’s on the Horizon?
Plans for a new 11 hectare site, featuring a manufacturing facility and R&D centre are in the final stages. This will be the largest seeder / planter manufacturing site in the UK in terms of output and will operate a linear production system incorporating LEAN manufacturing principals. Production will sit alongside our R&D centre, which will also house our engineering team. The site will be unique in that crop trials, R&D and production will all take place on the same site. As part of the new production facility move, we will be launching a range of 9-12 metre machines in 2022 to begin production for 2023. Further details will be revealed in the 2nd quarter of 2022.
UK Dealers announced!
We were very happy to welcome our new Sales Manager – Charlie Eaton to our team earlier this year. Charlie has been busy building our UK sales network, with 3 key dealers joining us to date – Smallridge Brothers in the Cornwall, Devon and South Somerset, Redlynch Tractors in North Somerset, Wiltshire and Dorset and RES Tractors in Leicestershire.
Automation
Whilst we are extremely proud of our 40 strong workforce, like any other business, it’s imperative that we look to evolve and to identify opportunities to increase efficiency. As we strive to be the leading European manufacturer of premium planting / seeding machines and tools for regenerative agriculture, we are investing heavily in our future, in order to compete with the larger European OEM’s.
Welding: We are about to take delivery of ABB Robot cells to automate around 65% of our welded components, this ensures repeatable accuracy, quality and efficiency. Parts Storage: As we all know downtime is something no farmers want. For this reason and to improve our internal efficiency we invested in two automatic storage systems. These systems can store a total of 90,000KG of parts or up to 35,000 lines, all of which are accessible within 8 seconds. The systems allow us to process a parts order in less than 4 minutes from order to packing. They are linked to our ERP software allowing us to send orders to be picked remotely
Introducing: The 3 C’s – Clearing, Cutting, Closing
All our row units have to perform 3 tasks:
• Clearing resude ahead of a disc opener or tine
• Cutting the soil evenly and to uniform depth to place the seed
• Closing the furrow assuring optimum seed to soil contact for even germination
As we delve depeer into the technology in our products and release more information on how each component gives you a return on investment you will see much more of the 3 C’s in the future! We hope you like it as much as we do!