BYMICHAEL BRESLIN
Just outside of Lisbellaw on the old road to Maguiresbridge is Crawford's Timber Factory. Locals are well aware of it as are its customers from all over Ireland but, outside of that, few know that it boasts a state-of-the-art timber ill that cost £7.5m and a £250,000 'robot' that bales the wood shavings for animal bedding.
And, by the way, the factory's owners, Ronnie and his wife, Pearl employ a 50-strong workforce. Included in that are their sons, Mark (36), who looks after the Port of Belfast side of the business and Gareth (26), who looks after the maintenance end. And, for the visitor to the site, there is plenty of automation, apart from the famous, 'Robot', the machine that bales, shrink wraps and stacks on pallets the animal bedding product.
But, as Ronnie Crawford explained, that was but one 'come lately' product, for the firm also manufactures Heat Logs and, to observe how they're made, is an education in itself. Besides these two outlets ('we waste nothing'), timber cut to required lengths and configuration is processed and delivered across Ireland and beyond.
So, how did it all start? Well, from a hobby, really for, before the firm got off the ground in 1978, Mr Crawford was dabbling in woodwork away back in '74 when he owned the Wild Duck Inn in the village.
"Different people kept coming and asking me to cut and plane things, and I saw an opening. We bought Henderson & Eadie's woollen mill at the start of the Troubles after it was burnt and started the business and, from two employees, we gradually built the workforce up to 50 at the moment.
"We provide a service to builders' suppliers. Anything that is needed for a house, inside and out, we do it, skirtings, architraves and profiles for windows and doors, you name it, we do it".
The timber used is all imported. It comes from renewable forests in Finland and Russia and is delivered to its branch in the Port of Belfast which Mark looks after. The timber comes in in 'square lumbers', cut and split and kiln dried. It is then brought to the plant in Lisbellaw for resawing to the required size.
Nothing is wasted. The pallets the timber comes in on together with plastic ties are all recycled and, if you wondered what happens to the nails in the pallets for the manufacture of the Heat Logs, they are automatically extracted by the huge shredding machine and fired into a skip.
As the market for their wood products grew, the Crawfords were up to the challenge and, over a six-month period in 2004, the brand new mill, the centrepiece of their operations, was erected. It cost a cool £7.5m and there was a further outlay of £250,000 for The Robot, the animal bedding baling machine where the human ouch isn't needed.
"It's the only one currently in use in the timber industry", Mr Crawford explained, "and it's the one that the schoolchildren are fascinated with. No, we didn't get a penny of grant towards it or the mill. It was all our own investment. Why? They (Invest NI) don't do grant to our industry and, even though it meant we could increase the workforce, it doesn't make any difference".
It's a point he does feel sore about: "We're not here today and gone tomorrow. We have invested a further £1.5m in the manufacture of Heat Logs, but still no grant. The whole thing was a very big investment but one we felt absolutely justified in doing. And, the other thing we pride ourselves on is it's all local labour, from both sides of the community, and they get on very well".
Occupying pride of place among the workforce are three generations of the Elliotts (Cecil Elliott & Sons) from Tempo, all five of whom, including the grandfather, Cecil (77) along with Mark Emerson are responsible for all of the firm's deliveries, across Ireland and into the UK.
"They have been with me since I started", Mr Crawford explained, "starting off with Cecil and his son, Norman. Cecil is the most remarkable man in the morning. He is never content if he's not working. They have their own lorries and trailers and they cover every county in Ireland".
No well-run firm, of course, can operate without a good general manager and in Robert Allen, from Irvinestown, the Crawfords have just the man. He has been with the company for the past 25 years and, add on five more years, and you have the longest-serving employee, Pat McElroy.
"He has been with me since the 'Wild Duck Inn' days, and he's a character. We have a number of other employees who acme to work with us during the Summer holidays when they were at school and, when they left school, the came to us permanently", Ronnie explained.
As one would expect of a timber factory, there is a constant buzz and whirring from the automated machines, one of them a planer that fires out lengths of wood along a conveyor belt at the rate of 220 metres per minute. Only one employee serves this machine, a very patient quality controller.
Elsewhere in the mill, Gareth lifts another huge scoop of broken wood with a Merlo P 40.17 and dumps the load into the Tim Envipro shredder that converts into shavings for the Heat Logs, having first spat out the nails and wire into a skip attached to it.
Gareth, who joined from school, is a maintenance engineer and, so looks after the maintenance: "We decided to do it in-house. There are very few things we can't do ourselves. We do bring in the experts when a major service is needed, for instance The Robot, but other than that, we do the maintenance and the break-downs ourselves. It is interesting".
The Heat Logs manufacturing unit has been going for the past three years and the attractively produced packets are available here and in England and Scotland.
Ronnie Crawford is optimistic for the future well-being of the firm. OK, property prices have shot up but, he stressed, timber remains at the same price it was 10 years ago while most building materials show very little difference.
"Perhaps labour is very expensive, but not to the degree of house and land prices which I expect to return to normality because I have seen it before. At any rate, we use everything, 100 per cent. We have very little wastage, from what we get in. Everything is recycled. Even the plastic wrapping is baled and sold which the timber comes in".
Meanwhile, Ronnie's wife, Pearl admitted she saw very little of her husband: "Apart from that, and family and home, boating is one of his rare outlets. He has it moored at Carry Bridge in his own marina. But, then as a family we're all very much involved in boats".
