A major quarry equipment firm is profiting from an innovative staff training programme - literally.

With help from Invest Northern Ireland, the Ballygawley-based company Fintec Crushing and Screening has managed to save over £1 million through the programme of staff training, which aimed to improve manufacturing and sales processes.

The huge savings resulted from a £230,000 investment in training for company directors, managers and team leaders.

This helped them to introduce new production procedures and streamline a range of other functions such as sales and purchasing.

Paul Colton, Operations Director at Fintec, said: "Since our senior management team underwent the extensive training programme, we have actually increased our unit outputs while decreasing our overall manufacturing costs.

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"A culture of continuous improvement has been developed amongst our employees, and additional improvements are now taking place across various other business operations.

"We have significantly reduced materials, stock and waste levels and as a result our production is more accurately matching demand," added Mr Colton, also explaining that Fintec - which is owned by Swedish multinational Sandvik AB - manufactures mobile crushing, screening and block-making equipment for the quarrying and concrete industry worldwide.

Tracy Meharg, Invest NI's Managing Director of Innovation and Capability Development, said: "Fintec has realised the benefits of improving the skill levels of its staff to increase profitability. It has far exceeded its targets for the project, and the advantages of the more efficient processes look set to help the company's profits in the months and years ahead."

"It is crucial that companies review their processes on an ongoing basis in order to develop more efficient operations, reduce costs and increase profitability, thereby improving their bottom line results," added Ms Meharg.

Fintec was a winner of a Queen's Award for Enterprise in 2006 and 2008, and the Exporter of the Year Award at Invest NI's Celebration of Enterprise in 2007.

The Business Improvement Training Programme is part funded by the European Union’s European Regional Development Fund.

(BMcC)