With the sudden closure of Intersurgical earlier this month, there were fears that it signalled the end of the line for factory produced items in the island.
However, Daniel Attewell and Jack Lucas from Offshore Electronics told Express that the situation is far from bleak.
Pictured (l-r): Daniel Attewell and Jack Lucas.
Technical Sales Director Mr Attewell said that in the thirty years since Offshore Electronics was first formed, it’s seen huge levels of success which he attributes to having managers on-island who are still actively involved in the business.
“The company has grown from strength to strength over the years and it has got bigger, with a more diverse range of customers and suppliers as well.
“All of the working directors are here, four are shareholders, so it enables us to sit and make decisions very, very quickly. We’re not reporting to anyone else off island so it makes it much, much easier.”
Like every business and every industry, both Brexit and the pandemic brought challenges.
“For us, obviously the pandemic and the knock on effects of that in supply chains, well Jack is living that at the moment,” said Mr Attewell.
“The lead times have gone up to maybe a year so our customers have placed forward orders so we can get in the queue for these parts.
“It’s a global situation with the covid pandemic, it’s not over in China, they’re still having lockdowns a lot that aren’t that well documented over here. Obviously the war in Ukraine and Russia too, there’re a lot of minerals that are now not being exported. There’s a lot of manufacturing and cable harnessing in the Ukraine as well which are not happening so that’s caused knock on effects here.
“Brexit has made it a little more difficult but Guernsey was very well prepared for that, we were kept up to speed very well by the local government which was really good so it made our lives much easier.”
Pictured: While both covid and Brexit had a big impact on the island’s economy, the management team at Offshore Electronics feel we were kept up to date by the States throughout.
Purchasing Manager, Jack Lucas said the increase in lead times is something they’ve been navigating for a while.
“It’s very difficult but we’ve managed to try and keep our customers fed with their orders as best we can. The whole buying pattern’s changed really. Historically we might have seen eight to twelve weeks visibility from our customers, but now we’re seeing a year, two years’ worth of orders that we can try and get ahead of the game and get placed.”
He added that the supply chain issues mean customers are wanting their products dispatched and delivered to them as quickly as possible. As well as relying on their own staff they work closely with Ferryspeed and Profreight, Guernsey Post and other logistics firms.
“At the minute with the supply chain issue a lot of our customers want their products as quickly as they can,” said Mr Lucas, “for us on the island getting them a near on next day delivery is pretty much unbelievable really. These guys all help us get that achieved.
“In nearly all aspects of the business at Offshore, be it customers, suppliers and staff too, it’s all relationships really. People move around the industry and names crop up that we’ve dealt with before so we like to buy from people and sell to people rather than just than any old business, similarly staff who have previously left often come back and return to Offshore.”
Pictured: Intersurgical closed down, seemingly with no warning, earlier this month.
Mr Attewell said that came into play when Intersurgical closed, and they received applications to some vacant roles from people who had worked at the medical equipment production site.
“It’s not a position you want to hear of but it’s given us the opportunity where we do have roles available, and we can fill them with people with a similar skill set in manufacturing so hopefully that will work for everyone involved.”
Mr Attewell said one challenge facing the manufacturing industry, along with every other in Guernsey, is the lack of people for the number of available job roles.
“It’s been very difficult, very difficult. I mean we’ve looked at alternative was of bringing people in but the cost of being in Guernsey is very high.
“With the recent influx of people in to the job market it’s presented us with an opportunity to actually now grow but there is a shortage of people in Guernsey, that’s for sure.
Pictured: 70 people work on the factory floor at Offshore Electronics operating different machinery.
“Everybody in this building has a skill,” he added. “Regardless of what department they’re in, so its important that one, we maintain that, and two, we push forward with training people as well to make sure we’re in the best position so when people become available then we can bring them in.
“It’s having that talent pool locally to bring them in, we often find it’s someone who moves to Guernsey with somebody who’s lived here previously that you get these people and they come in and they fit really well.”
Mr Attewell said along with their clients locally, there is a lot of manufacturing going on in Guernsey that many people may not know about.
“Off the back of what we do in electronics we’ve got three customers over here that I’m not sure many people really recognise. There’s ID-Porte pet scanners and they’re doing medical scanners as well now. There’s EM Electronic who manufacture amplifiers, and Polar Instruments as well. Those guys do manufacturing here and there’s Monaflex locally as well, and they employ a lot of people.
“In terms of suppliers to us, down at Rocquaine we use Qualtech who machine casesand have manufactured spacers for us. I guess if you take your window people and joiners too, they are all manufacturing locally. It doesn’t all stay on island.
Mr Lucas said all of the local manufacturers work together.
Pictured: Offshore Electronics makes numerous bespoke products for a variety of clients.
“We’re just one piece of the puzzle, doing the electronics side of things, these guys are doing plastic moulding and assembling, testing it all before it goes out to their customer so even though we’re hidden behind their sales and brand names we’re all still here in the same industry.
“We all try and work together. A lot of companies put up posts to try and get people (from Intersurgical) into new roles as quickly as possible which is nice. You don’t want to get these people working somewhere where they’re not using their skill sets to their full potential.
Mr Attewell agreed, utilising peoples’ skill sets was key to the response to the loss of Intersurgical.
“It is shocking when you lose a name but in terms of everyone else, and how everyone is working and how buoyant everyone else is, there needs to be some kind of reassurance here.”
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