Having the best tools for the job

NCS is one of the key players in the trade sign manufacturing industry, what is your current focus of development and plans for growth?

As a key player in the sign industry, we have seen a healthy growth in sales over the past twelve months of over 30 percent, leading to an increase in the number of staff employed and added to our production demands.


Our focus over the past few months and for the next few months is people. People are our most valuable asset, so recruiting and developing people to adopt our lean strategy and live by our core values is very important to us. We currently employ around 60 people, of which we are proud to have 16 employees with over ten years service, many of them with over 20 years. This provides a solid bedrock of people who have lived our values and are able to help new employees to settle in to our ways of working.

Our lean strategy is focused around our twice weekly morning meeting, which lasts around 15 minutes; all employees attend, and we run through our important numbers. We also look at what improvements have been made and ask people to present their own improvements in all aspects of the business. These meetings are very informative and keep everyone up to date with how busy we are and how happy our clients are.



Alongside growing people, we are consistently improving systems and procedures to keep pace with this added growth and the stringent demands that the sign industry throws at us.

You have just returned from Signlink live. What drove your decision to exhibit at this first-time show and how was your experience?

This was our first exhibition for over four years, the last being at the NEC at Sign and Digital UK in 2013. Having developed our reputation and credibility over the past four years, we felt the time was right to broaden our horizons and provide a platform for existing customers to come and see us, and update our offering to the trade.

The fact that trade sign manufacturing was organised into a separate exhibition alongside The Print Show also appealed as we felt lost amongst all the printing exhibitors last time around.



Once we committed to the exhibition, we threw a lot of energy and resources at it by designing and building our own exhibition stand, which whilst stressful due to the added production, gave us a great sense of pride and satisfaction when we manned the stand on the opening day. We had a very positive experience in terms of the quality of the visitors, whilst the quantity was not as anticipated. We met many businesses who had not heard of us and some who were very keen to find us, along with having the opportunity to catch up with some of our long-established clients.


Which of your products are you particularly excited about currently?

We have recently discovered a paint system that can give a metal finish on almost any substrate. The current trend for corten, rusty metal, and annealed steel type finishes is becoming ever popular and we are able to achieve similar finishes on much lighter substrates, which can be a big advantage providing a lighter product.

Various types of finish are available from copper, brass, verdigris, tin, bronze, gunsmoke, zinc, titanium, manganese, iron, and stainless steel. These can be polished to a high finish or aged and distressed to give an antique style finish.


We are also developing shallow individual face illuminated letters and are looking to have a product with a depth of just over 20mm.

As a company continually invest-ing in the latest manufacturing technology, how important is this aspect of your business to the finished product?

I have always been of the mindset to have the best tools for the job. This has on occasions challenged us financially but whenever we have pushed the boundaries, it has always been for the betterment of not just the end product but also, they improve the productivity and general wellbeing for the operatives.

Over the last two years we have installed two new routers, a letter making machine, and latex printer to help improve our capacity and quality. Laser cutting is our next big investment; we are currently in the process of extending our factory to enable the latest 4000 x 2000 fibre laser and a new CNC press brake to be installed to work in tandem with each other through the latest software.

The accuracy of these new machines will be a significant upgrade on our current situation which will allow smoother and greater workflow through our first stage production. Top quality machinery at the start of the process is paramount to maintaining a high-quality product all the way through fabrication and painting to final assembly.

What is it about NCS that makes it stand out in the competitive sign industry? And what is your competitive business strategy going forward?

Our top customers have told us that they depend on our reliability and quality, trust in our integrity, and know that we go that extra mile to achieve their requirements. We all know that the sign industry is very fast paced and due to improved technology, products can be produced much faster than in years gone by. We will always give our customers an honest answer when the going gets tough and if there is an issue with any of our products  we move swiftly to get a satisfactory outcome for all concerned.

Our policy of strictly trade only enables our customers to put full trust in our company to manufacture to their exact requirements without compromise.


Key stats

• 30 percent growth in sales in last year
• Employ around 60 people
• Signlink Live its first exhibition for 4 years
• 2 routers installed in 2 years

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