From pioneering design to cutting-edge automation, Garador blends British manufacturing with German engineering
Originally formed as part of Westland’s Engineers Ltd in 1948, as part of a diversification strategy away from military products, Garador Limited was established to manufacture one piece garage doors. Soon after, Westland’s purchased a license from Canada to manufacture one piece up and over garage doors and became the only manufacturer of such doors in the UK through the 1950s. A purpose-built garage door manufacturing facility was constructed in Yeovil in 1958 and the first Garador branded garage door was manufactured that same year.
Garador is wholly owned by the Hörmann Group, a large German garage door manufacturer and was acquired around the year 2000. The acquisition champions the combination of German engineering with British manufacturing, and Garador’s Yeovil factory has seen significant investment from Hörmann.
Today, Garador is one of the UK’s largest manufacturers of up and over and side-hinged garage doors, and a leading supplier of sectional and GaraRoll roller garage doors. With a focus on continual investment in both production technology and product development, Garador is at the forefront of modern garage door manufacturing. Over the last 25 years, the company has invested over £24 million in production technology and now has one of the most modern garage door manufacturing facilities in Europe, enabling production of a range of high quality, reliable products at affordable prices.
“When we launched our first garage door, way back in the1950s, it incorporated a concrete counterbalance and some of those doors are still in garages today,” begins Jon Watson, Managing Director, indicating the longevity and reliability the business has become known for. “Innovation wise, we were the first garage door manufacturer to produce a range of garage doors that achieved Secured by Design (SBD) accreditation. SBD is the official police security initiative that works to improve the security of buildings and their immediate surroundings. This important accreditation also reflects the quality of our products and demonstrates their safety and reliability.
“In 2014,” he continues, “we launched Door Builder to make choosing a garage door even more simple. It is a straightforward six-stage online process: customers enter their opening dimensions, select the door type and then the actual door from our huge range of styles. The Door Builder only showcases available products and allows customers to choose from a range of options, colours and handles. We’ve recently added a feature that enables prospective customers to see how their choice looks on their house,” he explains. “Over the years, we’ve invested heavily to bring our manufacturing plant into the 21st century. For example, we collaborated with Nordson Industrial Coating Solutions to replace one of our original powder coating booths with a new one featuring robotic touch-up for challenging areas. Combining the higher level of automation with the latest spray system technology significantly improved our process control, efficiency and productivity.
“This paint system was a significant investment of several million pounds, and we developed it with Nordson,” Jon continues. “It’s a fully automated plant with robots. As you can imagine, a garage door is a large item to spray, so we spent 12-to-18 months developing the process technology. It works extremely well and we’re currently planning further investment next year. We have two paint plants: an older white standalone booth and a more modern, robotic, color booth. Our intention is to either invest in the same facility for our white plant or possibly even look at color on demand. Nordson has technology whereby you can change your powder coating pretty much in a single minute, which when you offer every color of the rainbow as we do, has considerable operational advantages.” The equipment has virtually no downtime for maintenance due to the extreme longevity of the system components. 
While production was impacted at the start of the pandemic, sales increased when people were spending disposable income on home improvement projects during lockdown. Subsequently, the company experienced somewhat of a slump following the boom, but Jon is confident that business is bouncing back.
“I think there are a couple of things driving this market renewal. One is the UK Government’s plan to build 1.5 million homes over the next five years. Another is the Ministry of Defence’s plan to undertake a significant refurbishment of its housing stock. This initiative is part of a broader plan to improve living conditions for service personnel and their families and is backed by a substantial investment of over £7 billion. The refurbishment program includes urgent repairs and long-term renewal of military family homes across the UK, so together, these initiatives will contribute to lifting the market. Looking at our current sales, we’re having quite a good year to date. We are proud to have long-term business arrangements with some of the major developers and merchants in the UK, so we will compete for upcoming work and hopefully win based on our product, which we believe is superior quality at a competitive price.
“Looking to the future, the group invests for the long term in its businesses to make them competitive, and to do so, is committed to investing in automation, plant and manufacturing facilities. So, the future’s looking bright. We have a five-year plan in place, outlining what we’ll be doing and how we’ll achieve our objectives moving forward, which includes a significant yearly investment value of approximately 1.5 million euros. While we have our core open and over product, we do need to expand and diversify into a few key areas with our other products. We’ll also look at how we can possibly break into Ireland, which can be quite a difficult market in which to trade. We’ve done a little bit of business over there, but I think we can improve on that and try to grow the business in that area,” he elaborates.
“I’ve worked for a number of businesses over the years,” Jon concludes, “but Garador is one of the best. It very much has a family feel about it and is a great place to work. We have great relationships with our workforce, suppliers and customers. We have done a lot of work with the Hörmann Group on our vision and promote the four key areas of respect, teamwork, passion and courage, which we drive throughout our business and champion with our people. It really is about the people at Garador that make it successful, and they are at the center of everything we do.”