Capital expenditure will also reach an all-time high with the total spent on new equipment for the financial year (to 31st March 2014) reaching £53.6m – up 53% on the previous year.
GAP is now planning its 2014/2015 purchases of capital equipment and forecast purchase orders worth nearly £5m have been placed with Atlas Copco for compressors and with Hamm for rollers.
“We have long, term fixed price agreements in place with both Atlas Copco and Hamm,” said group procurement manager Ken Stewart. “Both manufacturers supply our equipment in GAP colours which increases manufacturing lead time. Therefore it was necessary to reserve production capacity to secure delivery from April onwards.”
He added: “Utilisation for various models within the above product ranges has remained consistently high throughout the year and our investment in these new products was made with that in mind”.
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