Today, we’re taking an in-depth look behind the scenes at Clayton’s brand new Bellshill-based IGU-making facility, with long-term Customer Planning Manager, Donna Clifford. Donna, gives us the low-down on the fantastic people that make up the team, the capabilities of the site itself, as well as her experience of the Clayton team so far.

“Everyone here is looking forward to their new journey with Clayton Glass!” Donna begins. “The team here in Scotland are fully dedicated to ensuring that this site is profitable and successful.”

Donna explains that the Scotland team’s main strengths revolve around their work ethic, down to earth nature and outright friendliness when speaking to customers, something that very much coincides with her perception of Clayton Glass.

“I think Clayton’s people-focused approach is something that really fits in with the way we do things here: the strong family values, the ‘going the extra mile’, it’s a good match.”

Donna goes on to talk about another big strength of the Scotland team: experience.

“The team here have many, many years of experience in the manufacture and distribution of double glazed units.” says Donna. “This enables us to provide a high quality of service to our customers.”

“We have many long-standing, highly knowledgeable and loyal employees who consistently go above and beyond in order to achieve our daily goals.”

Switching the attention to the people she has met at Clayton Glass, Donna discusses the positive and personable interactions she’s experienced from members of the Clayton team from the very beginning.

“We’ve been provided with plentiful support during this transition” explains Donna, “straight off the bat we were all introduced to members of the Clayton team, they were all extremely helpful and reassuring, it really made us feel at ease. Now we’re all just excited for the journey ahead together!”

Donna now discusses the Scotland site itself, mentioning that while the facility currently produces around 12,000 glass units a week, there is room and potential for a lot more.

“The site here is high-tech by industry standards” Says Donna. “With our automated electronic gantry system delivering large sheets of glass to the cutting tables and a number of other automated processes, such as spacer bar cutting and the movability of the patterned glass tables, we are able to expedite a number of smaller processes. There is certainly potential in this site to increase our output.”

Donna explains that the usefulness of this is that it allows a product to move that bit faster along the assembly line, as opposed to if this technology wasn’t in place. When all of these are added together, it produces a not unsubstantial amount of time being saved throughout the production process.

“It’s all about creating units in the most efficient and timely way possible, without compromising quality.” Summarises Donna.

Finally, Donna discusses the customers of the Clayton Glass Scotland site.

“We have a customer base that is long-standing and loyal.” Says Donna. “I’d just like to assure them that they are in safe hands, they will still receive the level of service that has been provided previously with minimum disruption to their expectations.

“As we go on, we will also endeavour to make the Customer experience more streamlined and consistent.”