Weatherite celebrates biggest-ever order

The contract, to supply air conditioning equipment at a data centre facility in Ireland, includes the design and manufacture of 66 air conditioning units over a three-phase programme.

Weatherite units will cool a huge 118,000 sq ft data center facility consisting of server equipment and large commercial information storage systems in six self-contained data halls, each with its own power and cooling systems.

The unique design is based on highly efficient direct free cooling mixing outside air and exhaust air to maintain the specified condition to the servers with the minimum amount of energy.

The packaged units, which are built and pre-tested at Weatherite’s 130,000 sq ft facility at Credenda Road, West Bromwich, will significantly reduce the site’s energy consumption compared to any other cooling strategy.

Furthermore, Weatherite has scooped a further five major contracts in the telecommunications and data centre market in the last six months.

To cater for this significant growth, Weatherite is planning a £1m investment programme to extend its manufacturing facilities in a substantial reorganisation of operations to become even more efficient through its next period of growth.

The investment, to expand its assembly line and storage facility, will provide Weatherite with a solid base from which it can service the significant increase in volumes expected during the course of the next year and beyond. Furthermore, the company anticipates a 10 per cent increase to local employment.

Chairman John Whitehouse, who started the company from scratch 45 years ago, said: “Winning this major new contract solidly anchors Weatherite in the data centre market and we are delighted with our achievements over the past year especially as Weatherite Air Conditioning has been so successful. The turnover for this part of the business has increased by £6m during the last twelve months.

“We currently employ 170 local people; our employee retention is exceptional with 40 per cent of staff working at the company for more than 10 years, and 34 personnel have been with us for over 25 years.

"As a family business, we care about our people and are extremely passionate about British manufacturing. Our raison d'être is to manufacture and deliver exceptional quality equipment to all our customers.”

“Like many UK-manufacturing businesses, we operate in highly demanding market sectors, and have successfully driven the business through four recessions since the 1970s. Our objective is always to be competitive.”