Engine company opens third production line

A world-renowned engineering company has launched a third production line after boosting its workforce to 800, it emerged today.

Staffordshire-based Perkins Engines can now produce 22,000 engines a year – a boost of 34 per cent on three years ago.

The firm, in Tixall Road, Stafford, now employs 800 people, having taken on an additional 100 when the extra line was built. The company, which exports 90 per cent of its products, said it was the result of a four-year investment programme.

Perkins provides off-highway diesel and gas engines in the industrial, agricultural, and electrical sectors and produces an engine every 88 minutes.

Some of its engines are used as back-up engines in the Heron Tower – the tallest building in London – and at Greater Manchester Police's headquarters.