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LEADING DECON SHOWER PRODUCER TO EXPAND INTO EUROPE
Thanks to British government orders for its decontamination equipment Professional Protection Systems of Milton Keynes is now established in Europe as the leading player in its field, and the volume of enquiries has become so large that the company has decided to open up shop there.

Almost immediately after completing a management buy-out from South African packaging giant, Nampak, just 12 months ago, the company was awarded the contract to supply the mass decontamination showers for the UK Government’s New Dimensions homeland defence programme by the Civil resilience team. The package also included the supply of accessories and the putting in place of training and maintenance programmes.

The high reputation of the UK Fire service amongst its European counterparts plus the almost unique know-how of PPS in this area has led to a flood of enquiries and, according to PPS MD Mark Whitcher, one has already translated itself into an order for £600,000 from the Italian civil defence organisation. Similar bodies in Spain and Greece are also showing a keen interest whilst Germany looks potentially to be PPS’s biggest market of all.

“We have been exporting our products to Europe for a long time and we have a net-work of distributors there and representative offices in Germany and the Czech Republic but, in view of the enormous interest in our products in the EU we have decided to set up a European HQ”, says Whitcher. This will be in the Cologne area that Whitcher has chosen for a variety of reasons. “One consideration is that it is a communications hub” he says. “You can get almost anywhere in Europe from Cologne using low cost flights. It is also very close to Bonn, which, which is still home to government departments essential to the business we shall be doing there. Most importantly it will be easily accessible to our sales operations in Belgium, France, Italy and, of course, the UK”.

Currently PPS is recruiting nationals for their new operation who have linguistic skills as well as knowledge of personal protection equipment and decontamination technology.

The main manufacturing base will continue to be in the UK although for sometime the company has had facilities in the Czech Republic. There is absolutely no intention of moving our manufacturing base to the UK” says Whitcher. “Ours is a highly skilled and specialised workforce with its roots around here. We could barely move out of Milton Keynes leave alone the UK. The Czech facilities do no more than provide welcome extra capacity”. The company also exports to some 40 countries outside of Europe, including the USA and Japan.

PPS employs a total of some 50 people and the current order books have created two new jobs in sales and four in the manufacturing team in the UK alone, with the European expansion coming on top of this.

PROFESSIONAL PROTECTION SYSTEMS, Protection House, Sherbourne Drive, Tilbrook, Milton Keynes, Bucks, ENGLAND. MK7 8HX
Tel: +44 (0) 1908 272240 - Fax : +44 (0) 1908 371605 - Email: sales@ppsgb.com
Registered in the United Kingdom - Registration Number 4494024

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