Clearview National March 2016 - Issue 172 | Page 108

MACHINERY

The Futures
will be Greener
for Camden
»»NORTHERN IRISH BASED WINDOW
fabricator Camden has always been one of
the industry’s understated manufacturing
companies. However, with the changes in the
Irish market over the last century the company
has seen a reform and repositioning to make
its products eco-friendly and greener.
Formed in 1983, by local entrepreneur
Patrick Lavery, ‘Camden Frames’ worked out
of a small rented site, employing about 30 staff
and manufacturing 250 frames per week.
Over the following next 10 years, as the
Irish house build market continued to boom,
demand increased for PVCu products and it
wasn’t long before the company was buying
out other related production businesses in
order to service its own increase in production.
‘Camden Glass’ – a fully automated glass
sealed unit manufacture was acquired in
Co. Tyrone and supplied all of Camden’s
requirements to fulfil demand.
With the increase in capacity, Camden also
made provisions to take on new production
machinery, including high-level, functional
CNC’s, welding and glass processing
machines, and at its height had (and still does
have), the ability to manufacture up to 10,000
frames per week.
Today, Camden is still the country’s largest
fabricator, sitting on two sites which span over
40 acres and employing over 600 staff.
Changes to the economy in the Irish
market at the start of the century, however,
saw Camden having to reduce its production
volumes as the housing market began to
slump. The management team were at the
time, well aware that the organisation would
need re-positioning in the market place if
they want to secure the future of Camden’s
business.
The team set about adapting the company,
reviewing its strategy and looking at ways of
repositioning through potential investment
opportunities to help diversify in to new
markets.
Bourne out of this strategy was Camden’s
desire to create a greener, more eco-friendly
business, and after a complete review of its

108 » MAR 2016 » CL EARVI E W- UK . C O M

production facilities, the business found
opportunities enabling it to reduce its carbonfootprint and produce energy efficient and
eco-friendly products.
In 2012, Camden launched Inliten, an
exclusively designed multi-chamber profile
system, manufactured using recyclable
products – refined and extruded onsite.
Inliten uses up to 80% recyclable material
produced from scrapped PVCu units,
processed through the company’s onsite plastic
recycling division, approximately one mile
away from its main site.
The processing plant receives up to 150
tonnes of scrap frames weekly which is
then sorted using high-tech sensor driven
machinery to remove any glass, metal or
gaskets through an automated sorting
machine. The plastic is grinded do