Step in the right direction

Ardmore Craig is certainly moving in the right direction.

A momentous 2021 has seen the ambitious, forward-thinking engineering design and consultancy firm move to Middlesbrough, win its 400th contract and position itself to attract interest from outside its loyal customer base that has utilised its services for over ten years.

In addition, Ardmore Craig is actively looking to add to its highly skilled team. So, all-in-all, these are exciting times for an undoubted Teesside success story.

Now based in the Cargo Fleet Offices on Middlesbrough Road, the company not only thinks big, but designs and builds huge pieces of equipment for a wide range of industry sectors.

It’s impressive stuff and, summarising the company’s core business, director Andy Stevenson says: “We work predominantly in the offshore arena. Historically, offshore oil and gas was a major market for us but more recently, offshore renewable energy has been a major focus.

“For example, we’ve been involved in 25 different wind farms across the globe to date, including in the UK, Europe and the USA, with more on the horizon.

“What we typically get involved with is developing engineering designs for bespoke equipment,” he continues. “For example, equipment that might go onto the deck of a vessel to enable it to lay cables, or subsea equipment that allows our clients to bury pipelines under the seabed.”

Andy’s fellow director, Mike Styan, has a simple message: “We want to let companies outside our circle know that we are here and available to help.

“We’ve passed the milestone of our 400th project this year, our largest design and build project of the past 10 years will be completed imminently and we’re rapidly expanding, taking on new engineers and support staff.”

As its website proudly boasts, Ardmore Craig are engineers who love to solve problems.

“We’re currently involved in some exciting projects in the mining and water industries and we’re about to launch a new service focusing on engineering support,” adds Mike.

“We are offering the use of our in-house team of design engineers and draughtsmen to companies that don’t have that in-house capacity themselves. It could be fabricators or machine shops that need existing drawings verified or updated or other engineering companies who need additional support.”

The move to Middlesbrough means Ardmore Craig is ideally placed to benefit from the new freeport on the River Tees.

“We’re now much closer to most of our main suppliers and the freeport,” says Mike, extolling the values of the recent move from Darlington.

“Most of our suppliers are Teesside-based and being located closer gives us much more access to them when potential project issues arise – especially, for example, on design and build projects where being able to visit site quickly when needed is a massive advantage, and this was a major reason in the office move.

“Historically, the company would carry out technical analysis and engineering design work on behalf of others who would then take projects forward and project manage the build phase.

“We’ve taken that experience and utilised our supply chain and group companies’ expertise to now offer clients a full turn-key offering.

“In fact, we’re approaching the conclusion of a project that is the largest the company has done to date in terms of value and also physical size.

“It’s an offshore carousel that has been designed to store hundreds of tonnes of cable, which ultimately will be used for offshore telecoms and renewable energy projects.”

Ardmore Craig can rightly claim to be a Teesside company with a global reach.

“Our customers are predominantly in the UK but we also have customers overseas,” explains Andy. “A lot of our equipment might be designed here but fabricated overseas and used around the world.

“We’ve just completed a design verification scope for equipment that will be used on a prestigious offshore project in Brazil and will be manufactured in the Far East.

“We are involved in a huge project in China with a UK client, dealing with Chinese supply chains and helping them design various structures. We’ve undertaken projects in Australia, several around the coastline of Africa and a number for North America, as well as numerous scopes in Europe.

“Our key client base is currently the offshore contractors – companies that would take our equipment designs and go offshore and carry out various operations utilising our solutions.

“But we also work with other equipment manufacturers and other engineering, design and consultancy houses, as well as local fabricators, where we are effectively their outsourced design house.”

What’s clear is that Teesside’s proud tradition of maritime ingenuity and engineering expertise remains, despite the changing industrial climate.

As Andy confirms, Teesside has the expertise and supply chain to execute highly technical large-scale projects.

He said: “That shipbuilding industrial skill base is still here but it is now utilised on fabrications for many other industries like offshore renewables.

“On the carousel project, the reason we were awarded the contract is that we have a great track record in designing such equipment, but we also have the supply chain around us and relationships within that supply chain that gave our client the confidence we could deliver the full scope. We know and trust our suppliers and we know how to utilise their expertise.

“Most of our suppliers are also our customers – with us being their engineering design partner. We truly value these partnerships and we are very excited about supporting more companies as we move forward from our new Middlesbrough base.”