This year sees Sentry Doors celebrating its 35th anniversary and a clue behind the Doncaster-based company’s longevity can be found in the fact that it is continually investing in its facilities and its people.
“As a business we’ve always strived to put the foundations in place to ensure that we can keep making the most of the opportunities available and move to the next level,” explains Ty Aziz, CEO. “The company was established in 1989 by husband-and-wife team, Gordon and Caroline Yates. Initially it was a distributor of fire doors and fire door sets before moving into manufacturing in the early 2000s.”
Having gone on to develop a strong reputation within the marketplace over the years, Sentry Doors received further impetus in 2019 when the original owners made the decision to sell the business to Cairngorm Capital. This subsequently led to increased investment, which has in turn seen rapid development in all areas of the operation.
“As a company, we’re now around five times larger than we were in 2019, and we’re set for a similar rate of growth in the next five years,” outlines Mr Aziz, who joined Sentry Doors as a bench joiner in 1997, gradually working his way up through the ranks before moving into management, in the process becoming Managing Director and then CEO. “From Day One Cairngorm Capital made it clear that they wanted to carry on the family ethos within the company and enhance the systems and processes already in place, rather than change everything.”
As someone who knows Sentry Doors inside-out, Mr Aziz understands the importance of taking a forward-thinking approach. “We’re very much about future proofing the business. This was the prime motivation in our acquisition of E & S W Knowles in August 2022, a firm that has been based in Birmingham for around 100 years and has a highly developed 60,000 sq ft facility.”
By bringing Knowles into the fold and adding a second site to its operation, Sentry Doors significantly increased its capacity, and was able to capitalize on Knowles’ existing expertise in the education, healthcare, and student accommodation sectors. A brand-new automated press machine has also been secured for the Birmingham site, while around £2m has been invested in the Doncaster facility, including the installation of state-of-the-art CNC machines.
“By adding a second site in Birmingham, and investing in our Doncaster operation, we’re in a much better position to support our planned growth. Our objective has been to ensure that the quality of our products remains unaffected, regardless of how busy we become. As a group, we can produce every single fire door on the market, from FD30 up to FD120, which gives us a completely comprehensive offer.”
It hasn’t just been its equipment and its bricks and mortar operation that Sentry Doors has been investing in either, as the company has also made sure it has added the personnel it requires to support its activities. As a result, in the past five years it has increased its workforce from 28 staff to around 200 across its two sites. “When we acquired Knowles we inherited a number of excellent employees, but we’ve also looked to bring additional staff in too. We strive to only recruit people of the right caliber who can add real value to the company.”
As well as being proactive on recruitment, Sentry Doors is also a keen advocate of developing its own people, with Mr Aziz being living proof of this philosophy in action, given his own career progression. “We’re a great believer in promoting from within and ensuring that our staff meet their potential with us. We’re all about bringing out the talent in our people and honing their skills through continual training. We’ve got warehouse managers who started out within production, so the opportunities are most definitely there, both at our Doncaster site and in Birmingham.
“We might be owned by a private equity company, but we’ve never lost our family ethos. This is underlined by the fact that we have staff who have been with us for 20-plus years. This level of loyalty is only made possible by creating excellent working environments and by being supportive. In fact, we have a sprayer who will be 70 in June who has no intention of retiring, even though he has to take two buses to get to work. He just enjoys working for us so much. This is great, as we’re able to retain all his valuable experience, which can then be passed onto our younger members of staff.”
Following the Grenfell tragedy and the subsequent introduction of the Fire Safety Act, the construction sector has come under much needed increased scrutiny, with much more rigorous inspections taking place to ensure such a horrendous loss of life is not repeated. Thanks to the investment it has made, Sentry Doors is well placed to play its part in driving up safety standards across the industry. “Unfortunately, there’s a substantial amount of non-compliant products out there that will need replacing. Demand is therefore going to increase considerably as inspections increase, so we’ve worked hard to ensure that we have the capacity and the product volume to meet the growing need, without compromising on quality or the service levels we’ve become renowned for.”
With the construction industry thankfully on the right track to getting its house in order from a fire safety point of view, for its part Sentry Doors is committed to investing further in its operation to provide the market with the best possible products across all categories. Of course, there will be hurdles along the way but with over three and a half decades of experience under its belt, not to mention the addition of the Knowles business, the company is well placed to continue opening doors in all areas of the marketplace.