Member Article

SCX expands premises to accommodate continued growth

A surge in new business has led the SCX Group to purchase even bigger premises, in order to accommodate an increasing workload in the nuclear sector and provide a new SCX Academy training centre for its growing apprenticeship scheme.

SCX, one of the UK’s leading mechanical handling and lifting solution providers – the company responsible for motorising the retractable roof at Wimbledon – recently acquired a 35,000 sq ft engineering facility close to its Headquarters on Roman Ridge Road near Meadowhall, Sheffield.

Simon Eastwood, Managing Director of the SCX Group said: “This is a very exciting time for SCX. As a result of our success in winning new contracts, we have expanded beyond the capacity of our offices and our workload is continuing to grow both in scope and innovation. We regard apprentices as the future lifeblood of our industry and we are looking to develop our apprenticeship scheme even further. The new site will enable us to provide an industry-leading training facility in order to continue professional development for existing staff and train new apprentices to satisfy our plans for growth. We will be building a dedicated area inside the workshop with cranes and other components to help our apprentices learn and practice the necessary practical skills before undertaking work on clients’ projects.”

Street CraneXpress, the division of SCX which undertakes crane maintenance, inspection and repairs, will be moving into the building and making use of the 4300 sq ft office space, after having grown out of premises acquired five years ago, as well as utilising part of the workshop space to create the company’s new SCX Academy training centre.

The majority of the two 93m-long workshop bays will be used by the SCX Special Projects division for the manufacturing and testing of high-integrity/Class 1 cranes and handling solutions for the nuclear sector. Complete with a pit facility, the site will provide the ideal amount of space for full-extension FAT (factory acceptance testing) of SCX Special Projects’ Mast Solutions.

“The site is perfectly catered to our specific needs and will offer a rare facility: We will be installing two new cranes including a ‘stooled up’ crane to provide a testing height of 9m over the pit, thereby enabling us to FAT many of our nuclear decommissioning mast solutions at full extension. As we enter a phase of manufacturing new designs, the additional space will give us the opportunity to develop our ideas and set us up for the future. “ Due for completion in mid-2016, the facility will require a considerable amount of general refurbishment work according to Simon Eastwood.

“We will be undertaking extensive construction work to install a new roof, lighting, heating, an alarm system and lift for disabled access. Once all of this work is complete, the site will allow our team to take on extensive projects and better facilitate our clients growing needs.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Image Line Communications .