Mark Guirard, Founder
It all started 20 years ago in my purpose-built garage at the back of my garden, decided to go into Scaffold tower manufacturing coming from a tool hire background knowing there will always be a demand for working at height and Good Quality Equipment. I took a welding course and gained my coding for aluminium tig welding (certification).
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2004
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We had designed our first prototype tower with the help of a structural engineer for in-house testing, at this point I talked my younger sister into giving up her teaching job to come and work alongside me as a sales rep for the company. | |
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2005
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One year passed and the working at Height Regulations came into force. We built our website scaffold-tower.co.uk and could not believe the demand. We moved out of my garage and rented our first industrial unit. My Son LEWIS was born and i decided to name our products after him. |
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2006
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Was a big game-changer, we purchased 15000 square foot of industrial units in London and applied to have our products certified by the BSI, a big move for us as both investments were extremely high, pleased to say after months and months of product testing and production procedure checking we achieved what we consider the highest Product certification award in our industry, the BRITISH STANDARD KITEMARK LICENCE. | |
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2007
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Our Production staff levels was growing every 6 months, more Tig welders, Factory workers even admin staff to deal with production and customer service. | |
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2008
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Was simply the worst year, rescission hit hard and we all felt the squeeze, not needed when investment is at an all-time high and a factory full of workers. With split shifts, we managed to keep all staff throughout that year. | |
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2009
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Eldest Daughter Lauren Joined the company fresh out of college and full of bright ideas, Customer focus was on her agender, being 100% focused on the customer needs through the hard times would mean we stood out from the competition, It worked. | |
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2010
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Designed and Patented the Safe Brace, an innovative carrying device for scaffold braces. | |
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2016
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Purchased the Patent for the famous Scaflock system, another innovated device for making sure no unauthorised dismantling of a scaffold tower takes place. | |
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2017
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Introduction of CAD design for customers requiring bespoke equipment. We have been focusing on more specialist requirements at this stage. We employed new inhouse staff as part of our design, technology and development – to ensure we had the right resources to do what was asked of us! | |
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2019
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This was a very big year for LEWIS. We decided at this point to take our manufacturing processes and quality, to a new level. We had invested heavily into new machinery including three new Robotic Welders. we needed to upscale our level of production, but also to increase and better our equipment from a quality perspective. Alongside this, we invested in a new part of our business, and opened our own foundry. It had taken a long time and lot of strategic planning and investment. | |
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2020
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Acquired 9000Sqf industrial space bringing our total to 35000sqf of workable factory space here in London. | |
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2021
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Back from Covid with flying colours | |
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2022
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Our very own fleet of HGV trucks now up and running throughout the Uk delivering our product’s direct to the end user. This was a big investment into people as we had many training sessions for drivers, office staff, pickers and packers along side Transport management. This allowed us to take control of every aspect of our business. | |
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2023
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By popular demand we re- Introduced our Industrial ladders once again. At the same time we are now manufacturing the heavy duty Lewis staging board | |
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2024
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We invested in the state of art air ventilating system for the factories. | |
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2025
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Acquired 5200Sqf industrial space bringing our total to over 40,000sqf of workable factory space here in London. This will allow easier scaling up of our production over the next 10 Years. |
Today I am proud to say we hold many different Kitemark Licences, work closely with the BSI testing institution, very much customer focused and offer the keenest prices in the UK with a backup service unmatched in our industry.
Thank you for reading this.
Mark Guirard, Managing Director
