Flexseal Embraces its Specialism
Over 30 years ago in 1989, Flexseal was formed, bringing the UK marketplace a company dedicated to the manufacture of flexible drainage couplings. This specialist focus in the niche of flexible couplings brought the drainage system industry improvements to the design, quality and reliability of these simple yet hugely important fittings.
In the early years Flexseal focused on perfecting these products and expanding the range, with the ultimate long-term aim to provide a solution for every drainage connection problem.
Since 2002, Flexseal has been a member of Fernco, a global group of companies all delivering a similar portfolio of products and services around the world. Being part of the wider Fernco group has allowed Flexseal to develop its specialist knowledge much deeper, which in turn has led to increased innovation focus and a much faster new product development process.
The group employs around 300 people, all focused on bringing its customers market leading drainage pipe connections and aligning its business units with its distribution and merchant partners.
A UK manufacturer
Although Flexseal is part of a wider global group, the company remains a UK-based manufacturer, making fittings for the UK and its export markets. Flexseal has, more recently, cemented its British manufacturing background by investing in new state-of-the-art production machinery, including injection moulding machines, jointing machines and steel automation lines.
“These investments have helped us perform well under difficult circumstances and the benefits which helped us to perform well for our customers over a challenging 2021 will remain part of the appeal of dealing with Flexseal. The investments into the production of Flexseal products will continue over the next few years.” Lee Pashley, Managing Director, of Flexseal, said: “I’ve been with the company over 20 years and we’ve come a long way since then. Having the backing of the Fernco group has propelled us to the respected manufacturing supplier we are today.”
“That strategy of continual improvements won’t stop and over the next few years you’ll see our investments continue as we aim to be our merchant partners most supportive supplier.”
As well as its focus on ‘British-made’ production, Flexseal is also stating its commitment to supporting environmental impact targets.
“One of our company values that we’re proactive about is to ‘Seek Simplicity’ in everything we do, which includes our operational practices, product development and much more,” said Pashley. “The result of simplification often leads to a lessened environmental impact and we can see this in some of the actions we’ve taken over the last five to six years. “For example, the removal of plastic packaging from some of our core product offerings, the investment in more energy efficient machines, the introduction of our electric company car policy, the sourcing of materials more locally and even the introduction of waste recycling across the business.
Future targets
“The problem we have had as a business, like many others, is we’ve had an unstructured approach to our environmental impact improvements. This has now changed and our focus is on reviewing where we are, setting targets for the future and sharing those improvements with our merchant partners.”
Everything Flexseal is focused on is centred around aligning its business with its merchant partners in order to remain frictionless, easy to work with but ultimately also add real value. Improvements in the Flexseal production facilities and a commitment to building an improvement plan for its environmental impact are just some of the ways Flexseal is demonstrating its commitment to that merchant alignment.
To kick start that alignment plan this year and to help celebrate merchant businesses, Flexseal is sponsoring the Specialist Merchant of the Year category at this Builders’ Merchants awards 20 Anniversary, held in February.
Ryan Lockwood, Marketing Manager for Flexseal, said: “This is the category that most resonates with our own business; our origins are very niche and we’ve developed specialist knowledge in the area of pipe connections since the business was formed. We appreciate the level of skill, knowledge and hard work which is required to succeed in any specialist area and that’s why we want to help specialist merchants celebrate their successes.”
Following another year of unprecedented industry challenges in 2021, Flexseal is looking forward to a year of joint business opportunities with its merchant partners in 2022 and is committed to supporting the needs of the industry as a whole.