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SAM KENNEDY, SPECTUS WINDOW SYSTEMS: Most of the discussion we've had today has been, shall we say, a little bit insular. We talked about the UK a lot of the time. There are a lot of European companies in here and one of the areas that we wanted to add on to the end was on EU legislation. We've subtitled this “Muddled and red tape”. Now, who would be better to unbundle that red tape than Giles? Can you give us an update on this, please?
GILES WILLSON, BFRC & GGF: It's very interesting today. We've spoken a lot about regulation and building regulation and how we can use that, and we have said that by enforcement it has risen again with FENSA and Part L and safety glazing. There have been a lot of positives about regulation. This is EU legislation and European standards.
Just to give you an outline, as you should be aware, Construction Products Directive led to a whole load of European standards being developed. For the last 15 to 20 years, I think, we've been working on these. It's taken a huge time to come to maturity. A lot of these are published, are mandatory and are working today. However, when I speak to many people, especially those that are further along the process installing windows, and I say glass comes under CE marking, units are under CE marking, they look completely amazed. They have absolutely no idea at all that they're European standards. I know Pilkingtons and all the other glass manufacturers have had loads of testing. They do declarations. You'll see the new European standards. You’ve got unit makers: all unit makers should have the product tested and do declarations.
There is confusion in the UK, mainly by the way we interpreted the CPD for the regulations. We don’t make it mandatory that you CE mark your product. You have to comply with the regulations but you don’t actually CE mark your product. We’re not going to go into a debate why, but it has caused some confusion. The other key thing as well is if you did CE mark your products - and most people will do on a voluntary basis because they’ve done all the work, they’ve done the testing - it's always emphasised it is not a quality mark. It just shows compliance with the essential requirements of the regulations. Some people are thinking why, what's this all about, and I think it’s legislation, muddle and red tape.
Finally, I've mentioned glass units. Windows from 1 February 2009, CE marking for all windows and doors. That will be implemented by then. So, industry has got to get everything in place ready for that. A lot of companies have gone over the time periods, but they’ve been able to because of enforcement or, more to the point, lack of enforcement. Who’s enforcing all this CE marking? Trading Standards? They're the people who have been appointed by the UK government to enforce CE marking. Now, I've spoken to Trading Standards officers. Insulated glass units - how many people get killed by that unit sitting in the window if it's not got the CE mark on it? Their priorities are for totally different areas; in the press recently with toys coming out of China, a classic example. They will concentrate on that. They’ll look at food, they look at weights and measures.
So, I think the confusion and the red tape and the muddle is we've all got to change. We do all this which is slightly different. Someone will ask me a specific question, “What do I have to do?” I say, “Well, you can do this or you can go down this”. There isn’t a black and white answer what you have to do because it's legislation and there's only one way you know if you are compliant and that’s when you go in a court of law. So you get the best advice, which is can you demonstrate your product complies with the essential requirements, i.e. go and do your own testing. “Well, do I have to?” “Well, if you're happy with someone else’s results and that reflects yours, fine, you can place it on the market.”
There's all these confusing matters and I know Tom particularly has had a huge amount to do, trying to get things approved and regulated because he has some very specialist products, fire resistant glazing, trying to sell them across Europe. CE marking should mean that you’ve got one single market. That’s what we’re trying to achieve: one set of standards, one market, have it tested in one place and you’ve got a bigger market to sell. Sounds like a perfect world. It doesn’t always work like that because of different regulations, and when it comes to windows, by 2009 the European standard is 14351 and that’s a list of characteristics, certain requirements for the UK market. It's the same standard, same test methods across Europe, but the requirements in Germany, France, UK, Greece are all totally different. You could have your window tested, but you’ve then got to see if it complies with France or complies with Greece, so we haven’t actually made one single market.
MARTIN ALTHORPE, BPF WINDOW GROUP: It's not a standard either, is it? It's just a common method of denoting performance?
GILES WILLSON: Correct. So you can compare, and I think that’s really what it tried to do. In all fairness, when work started on windows, you look at the windows in the UK, you look at the windows in Germany, they're different looking. Continental windows are different. Now, do we change all of our windows to be of German appearance? One solution and it could be done. So how do you make a comparison? But then areas which have worked particularly well for CE marking I think are your glass products because they are sold across the whole of Europe and that has worked well. So glass you're buying in the UK, in Germany and France, it's all been tested and it's one market and I think for manufacturers it has been easier. But you get to units, a bit more complicated; you get to windows, even more complicated.
MARTIN ALTHORPE: Where are we up to with redoing 6375 so that it sort of reflects the 14351?
GILES WILLSON: That’s in a draft stage. For people who may not be aware - and I don’t want to make this a technical meeting - that’s the UK implementation series of documents so you’d know how to work a European standard in the UK. We’re trying to write some documents which will make it easier for the UK market.
MARTIN ALTHORPE: And they are standards? They call it minimum levels.
GILES WILLSON: They are standards. They are British standards, yes. They will have a series of classes and what is usual for the UK market. Because if you’ve got one characteristic, and it doesn’t matter if it's for thermal performance, security, and there's five classes, which one do you use for the UK, class one or class five?
MARTIN ALTHORPE: What does the security standard go up to, class eight? I think we might joke about class eight because I think it goes to class seven. But that standard would be suitable for something like a bank vault.
GILES WILLSON: It was designed for that.
MARTIN ALTHORPE: Yes, you have the new intervention tests and you use a crow bar, screw drivers. Well, this level actually allows you to use mains powered angle grinders and things like that.
GILES WILLSON: You’ve got angle grinders and all sorts.
MARTIN ALTHORPE: We joke about level nine on a presentation, put level nine and you’ve got a picture of a tank or rocket propelled grenades or something like that.
GILES WILLSON: Yes, that’s exactly right. But then that’s the security standard for all applications. There’s certain houses which have got some very expensive contents and will need to have very secure windows, and I know there's a niche marketplace for that where you do have thick laminated glass and you need to have that to get any insurance.
SAM KENNEDY: Is all of this information coming through to the manufacturer?
MARTIN ALTHORPE: In actual fact, I can remember standing up at a seminar in Northampton, how long ago was it? It wasn’t last year, was it the year before?
GILES WILLSON: No, no three years ago.
MARTIN ALTHORPE: Three years ago, on 14351. We were talking about it. It was an industry seminar three years ago and as a company we did customer seminars around about the same time. The problem with these things and the slow grind of this process is that you tell people about something and it doesn’t happen. It's not that it's not happening, it is, but it just takes so long and we’ll have to do it all again. We've already tried to educate people once.
GILES WILLSON: It's been a continual programme of trying to educate. Items have gone into trade press. Martin mentioned the seminar which was held in Northampton. I spoke at that seminar, I’ve spoken at other seminars. When is it actually really going to happen? I think that the investment required, sometimes people are starting to prepare but they're thinking, “Well, I don’t want to go too far because it may never, ever happen and why do I need to do that?”
NIGEL RICHMOND, FENSA & BOWATER BUILDING PRODUCTS: In answer to Sam’s question, though, the GGF is disseminating it to all of its members regularly in newsletters and briefings, etc. To the industry at large I think the GGF is also, by virtue of press articles and that, making people aware but not in as much detail as you would do from a membership point. I would suggest, Sam, that there's an awful lot out there that it will be new.
MARTIN ALTHORPE: BPF has a monthly newsletter. The window group has a monthly newsletter which Paul (Jervis) writes and he’s continually updating people on that.
NIGEL RICHMOND: We probably don’t get to everybody. If there's 9,400 FENSA members, between the two of us we’ll get to 500 of them. It’s crazy. Even though on a Pareto concept that’s probably 60% of the whole industry, but it's 40% --
MALE SPEAKER: You don’t get to us, for example, and some of these things could have repercussions.
GILES WILLSON: Again, as a trade association we've disseminated press articles but it’s really for membership. That’s who I'm trying to educate. That’s who funds my wages because I've got to keep them on board. This is one of the hard things and, again, it comes from government for that implementation. They haven’t come to any of the trade associations and said, “Here’s some money. We’ll pay you to educate the industry”. So, who’s meant to be doing that? It's a bit of a vicious circle. Who’s meant to be doing that education? We do do it for the good of the industry and it goes by word of mouth and by magazines and the seminars. I know the seminars we have run and other trade associations and other bodies have run have been advertised in the trade press and they’re open, so you don’t have to be a member of the Trade Association to attend any of these, but you have to pay to attend like most events.
SAM KENNEDY: One of the other areas that we wanted to try and put in, and we started it earlier on, James, was on the effects of growing imports and how that, obviously, impacts on people like yourself and impacts on the manufacturers as well. Do we feel that that is an important item and is that on the agenda for manufacturing in the future?
JAMES HURST, WINKHAUS: It's hard for me to say how important it is, but it's definitely happening. I think this is the tip of the iceberg, but one of the things we’re seeing is customers of Winkhaus in Poland and Germany and Ukraine are making windows to sell into the UK and are using our UKAS-approved test laboratory, which we have in the UK, to get accreditation to Secured by Design in order to sell, which tells me that they are looking at social housing contracts mainly. I think that’s their main reason. But I perceive some of them have been selling in the UK without any kind of certification other than the fact, “Hey, it's German; therefore, it must be great”. I haven’t got a feel for numbers except to say this year we've probably had half a dozen different companies coming through the test laboratory.
SAM KENNEDY: On your side of the business as well, Peter, I know that Millenco at one time had a factory just outside Hong Kong?
PETER HUNT, MILLENCO: Yes, we source product from China. One of the things that we’re finding is that we design and redesign product to standards and 50% of our customer base isn’t even interested in those standards, not at all. So it doesn’t matter whether I'm bringing a product in from overseas or the UK, it doesn’t matter whether it's standard or whatever, most of the customer base are not educated enough to know what the standards are. But for the stuff coming in from overseas, that’s not going to go away.
JAMES HURST: The quality is getting better, I think, to be honest.
PETER HUNT: Transportation is getting better, the speed of stuff coming in, and once China is finished as a source it will move on to another part of the world. I think we’re already looking at other areas.
SAM KENNEDY: On the machinery side, Phil, that’s always been that way anyway, hasn’t it? Most of your machinery has been imported, is that right?
PHIL HEAVEY, ELUMATEC: Most of our equipment comes from Germany, yes. We know of German companies that are making windows, doors, who will ship them over to the UK. I find it amazing really, but anyway, it has been happening and I'm sure it will continue.
SAM KENNEDY: On software, Windowmaker, I seem to remember, didn’t you have a lot of your software made in India at one time?
GORONWY JONES, WINDOWMAKER: We have 65 people in India, so that’s our core development team. The design is still done in the UK, but we couldn’t conceive of working without it. It's got a larger skills base and I'd say higher skills, actually. Obviously they need teaching about the industry and the costs are a tenth. Also, amongst our customers, we’ve sold Windowmaker now in 66 countries. We are seeing a lot more interest in cross-border trading. I've just visited an Australian customer who buys in either complete windows or components from Malaysia and needed some adjustments to the software to perfectly suit that process. We have Polish manufacturers who are making windows for French customers. A lot of these ones are explored; sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t quite work because maybe the quality is not initially up to scratch or people look at selling to the UK and then they realise they don’t know how to make reverse welded windows. But the fact that they don’t know today doesn’t mean they won’t know tomorrow, and it's going to come. I visited a Chinese manufacturer who says it costs him $10 per window to ship across to the States. It takes six weeks, but if it's a commercial project where people can wait and you have this choice between a cheap price or fast, some people will go for the cheap. I don’t think there's going to be any long-term quality issues. They’ve been buying European machinery. A lot of them are European profile systems.
SAM KENNEDY: I think the underlying question on this one was it’s happening and it's part of globalisation; is it a worry to the industry itself, is it a negative to the industry or is it a positive from the manufacturing point of view?
NIGEL RICHMOND: I think it’s a serious worry, I really do. It starts with components. Components have always been easy. It's progressing to windows. It's progressing to sealed units. You’re flooded with sealed units. You can buy sealed units from any Eastern European country now and they will ship them over here. Glass will come over here. I guess the danger is that eventually profile will come in from there. You think it's a capital-intensive industry so what big advantages do they have on profile, but they seem to be able to get cheaper resin. How do they get cheaper resin? I don’t know. Their wage costs are fantastically lower than ours. They seem to be able to copy machines. Whether they were Cincinnatis or Battenfelds, suddenly they’ve got a Chinese brand on them. They copy tools. They're not originators but everything is copied there. A half a million pound extrusion line over here suddenly becomes a £50,000 extrusion line over there. You add it all up, £200 a tonne cheaper resin, cheaper machinery, cheaper tools, cheaper labour and, as we said, the transport cost doesn’t seem to be a big issue any more. They seem to be able to ship stuff halfway round the world for a fraction of the cost.
So, is it a threat? I think it is. I don’t know how we fight it, but I think ultimately the only thing that takes it away from being a threat is that their domestic demand is so great that they just keep filling their own demand and there's not enough volume to go overseas, but ultimately it's got to be seen across the whole spectrum.
WOLFGANG GORNER, REHAU: It's one that we’ve looked at quite closely because from the UK we also look after the Scandinavian market. If I look at Denmark, for instance, the Danish market has been absolutely destroyed by Eastern European imports. I'm talking finished windows now. I forget what the figures are, but we are talking very high percentages of product coming in from Eastern Europe. I think the one thing that is a threat in the UK, I don’t think so much so on the finished window, but I think on componentry, and possibly glass, but the one saving grace for us is going back to the unregulated, unstructured, unsophisticated market is actually our saviour. The fact is the average installer is so used to such a quick turnaround time on a window and they make so many mistakes in terms of measuring, etc, nobody from overseas can cope. I've actually had Polish companies inquiring of us, “Can we buy profile, take it over to Poland, make windows, ship it back?” As soon as you tell them what the average lead time is for trade windows in the UK, forget it, they can't compete so long as we have those very short lead times and I don’t see any sign of that changing.
For new build, there's danger there, but even then again on new build things change on site, things need to be altered and these guys can't turn around windows in a short lead time. You’re talking about something that even from Eastern Europe is stuck on a lorry for a few days, and the local companies are always going to be able to offer a level of service that somebody from overseas cannot do. If you’re talking about something which is so standard - size doesn’t vary, specification doesn’t vary - yes, commodity products, but our window products on the whole tend not to be. Each job is slightly different.
SAM KENNEDY: Are there any more comments on that?
ALAN BURGESS, MASTERFRAME WINDOWS: I think another saviour may well be your green footprint, your carbon footprint. If you start saying to people, “Well, value proposition, yes, but it's coming from China and it's this and it's that and it's on there”, whereas we are fortunate that our glass manufacturer is in the same town as we are. It's a fairly short footprint. I don’t think we should underestimate the fact that that’s an advantage and if we just forget about it or think lowly of it we’ll never use it, but it really is becoming an issue.
SAM KENNEDY: Do you want to have a quick word, Richard?
RICHARD SCHWARZ, THE GLAZINE: It has been a very interesting day, I think, and I hope everybody has got something out of it. What I have picked up very much is we’re proud of our industry but have become a bit complacent, I suppose. Certainly it is a bit of a shock that training is such an issue everywhere. We do stuff in the kitchen and bathroom market as well. They’ve only just got around to putting a lot of training in place, like the BMA has set up the Bathroom Academy to train on bathroom installation, and the ex-chairman of the KBSA has gone off to set up a structured training programme. I vaguely remember this all happening in the glazing industry years ago. We were talking about it earlier that Spectus had a registered installer scheme and there have been these things, but I suppose they're internal programmes, a lot of these things, and there's nothing industry-wide. The NVQ things are just badges to put on the wall and not really training schemes, are they? When you look at the kind of people that turn up to my house to try and sell me double glazing - we’ve got single timber windows in the front because they're leaded and they look nice - it obviously attracts everybody and we get about three a week. They're scruffy, they're rude, they're ignorant and somebody’s employed these people to try and sell me £10,000 worth of double glazing. There's a need for it but how we move forward from this I don’t know. It is something that needs to be addressed, but then you’d think that companies would naturally want to address that themselves anyway. I don’t know why we need to sit round and decide it. It just seems to be part of normal business practice to get more sales.
It's been an interesting day and it's raised a lot of questions. Hopefully, we’ll all tune into The Glazine in the next few weeks to see the results of what we published. Thanks to Sam and Mike particularly for bringing it all together and thanks obviously to everybody for turning up.
SAM KENNEDY: Thanks, Richard. Just to sum up as well, we've run the whole gamut of different discussion pieces here, whether it be training, whether it be the professionalism of getting professionals into the business itself, whether it be the badge of honour that Nigel was talking about. Somebody asked me last night, in fact, “What's your objective for the meeting itself?” Really, the objective for this meeting itself was - and I started off by saying - there is loads of suspicion and distrust in the industry itself. My objective was to get people to sit down and actually work together for the industry because a lot of us have been in this industry a long time and it's been very good to us and it would be a real pity that we let this industry wither on the vine because of unprofessionalism. We are a little bit down in some areas, but there are amazing opportunities within the industry itself. It's not a crisis. There are loads of opportunities there.
I started off this session with a quotation and I'll finish off with a quotation as well. This is from another Kennedy, J F Kennedy. He is one that escaped the double glazing industry. It says, “Without the strength to endure the crisis, one will not see the opportunity within. It's within the process of the endurance that opportunity reveals itself”.
Today I think the debate has been of a high standard. Hopefully, we can move on from this and really build on it. I’d just like to thank everybody here for taking the time out of their busy schedules and contributing to the debate, so thank you very much.
