P2’s adds bonding and pressing workshop

P2 is very pleased to announce a significant addition to its capabilities thanks to a new bonding and pressing workshop. The great new equipment we’ll be using is extremely valuable in a world where the pace of business means time is precious. We’ll now be able to bond and press a wide variety of sheets in just minutes. That’s a massive improvement over having to wait for glue to set in its own time, and makes us not only faster and more agile, but also more versatile too.

Our retail display furniture customers will benefit from these improvements, as we continue to deliver the highest quality even more quickly. But we are also able to offer a bonding and pressing service in itself to those who require it.

Our simple adhesive spreaders can apply glue to both sides of a sheet in a single pass, and we can work with anything from MDF to chipboard, laminates to veneers – and everything in between. We can also supply a lot of these core materials: MDF, plywood, chipboard, and door blanks, as well as high pressure laminate (HPL) materials for bonding that’s more complex (such as Polyrey, Formica, Abet, and Egger).

If you are looking for a bonding and pressing service, get in touch with us via our contact form. We have the capacity to work with any number of sheets, of various sizes, which you can supply yourselves or purchase from us. We can also deliver you the finished product, right to your doorstep.

Posted in P2

P2 hits a high point in 2019 – and plans to climb even higher in 2020!

2019 has been a fantastic year for P2, seeing us go from strength to strength. As the holiday season approaches, we thought we’d fill you in on how we’ve grown over the past twelve months, and what our vision for the future is. We’re hoping that, as good as 2019 has been to us, 2020 will be even better!

2019 has seen us expand our workforce, adding valuable skills to the team including 2 new joiners and another computer-aided designer (CAD), who has helped us to ensure that our design capabilities stay at the cutting edge of the industry. In the New Year, we’ll be adding another CAD & Project Manager to help us manage our steadily growing workflow. We have also promoted from within, with one of our labourers becoming a CNC programmer and operator.

We hope to add another two joiners in 2020, boosting our capacity even further.

What’s driving our workforce’s expansion? Simple – a corresponding increase in the amount of work we’re taking on. In 2019, we’ve had repeat work from long-time clients (all very hush hush!), with builds in the likes of the newly refurbished JLP Peterborough, an iconic jeweller in London and Paris, as well as a luxury hotel in London. We’ve also won new contracts, with businesses within the travel retail sector.

As a reflection of this growth, we’re shifting our offices around. The reason is simple: we want to accommodate our bigger CAD and production offices. We’re also hoping to locate another suitable factory into which we can move our machine shop & Spray shop to create a bigger workshop. These facilities will be well stocked with a newly acquired heated press, drum sander, and (space permitting) a new CNC machine in 2020.

As you can see, 2019 has been 12 months of success for P2. We hope you’ve been as fortunate. After all this activity, even we need a break, so we’re closing up our offices at lunchtime on December 20th. But we’ll be back in the New Year, opening as normal from January 2nd. Until then, there’s only one thing left to do: wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Posted in P2

What it takes to make it at P2

Whether it’s from prospective hires looking to join us, or new clients who want to find out what they can expect from our team, we often find ourselves being asked: ‘what makes a good employee at P2?’ This month, we thought we’d take the time to make that knowledge public, offering clear guidelines for new members of staff, and putting our best asset (the people we employ) front and centre. Some of those people have been with us since we first opened our doors nearly five years ago – so we must be doing something right when it comes to picking the cream of the crop!

The first and foremost quality we look for in any member of staff is an ability to problem-solve. We can teach people how to think about problems, but the problem-solving mindset is something a person has to supply themselves. Because our work often presents unique requirements (to showcase products in a certain way) under equally unique limitations like time scales and design restraints that are non-negotiable. As a rule of thumb, all our employees should be able to think of a minimum of two solutions when a problem presents itself. As a team, we then expect them to pool their resources if necessary and work towards the best solution.

Teamwork is not only important when solving customer problems. If you can’t function as part of a team, then you are fundamentally unsuited for life in a workshop. For this reason, we take collaborative skills very seriously, and insist that our employees are able to work well with others. But that doesn’t mean compromising on what makes you unique. Individuality is a key factor in P2’s business. By embracing what makes you unique, you open the door to finding original solutions.

There are certain strengths that are advantageous in any job – and at P2, we expect all our staff to embody them. It is essential, for example, that employees have a healthy work ethic, as shop fitting and retail display are not easy areas to work in. It’s equally important that our employees are reliable – our clients have tight turnarounds, and if we want to guarantee that we’ll meet them, we need every person to do their part. We also expect our staff to be disciplined everyone needs to do the right thing… even when no one is looking.

There are only two more qualities that we consider “must-haves”. The first is a benefit to joiners in any industry – an eye for detail. The devil, as they say, is in the detail… that’s where you’ll find what turns a good piece of work into a great one. We’re proud of every member of our team’s attention to detail and ability to notice things others might miss. And the second is, in some ways, the most-important: a desire to improve. P2 is its employees – if they’re all getting better day-by-day, then so is the business. We encourage our staff to be proactive in this regard, and use regular reviews to help people stay on track – but again, no one else can be ambitious on your behalf. We want employees that yearn to be the best.

If, after reading all that, you think you’ve got what it takes to work with P2, please keep an eye on our vacancies page – eventually, we’ll want to hear from you. And if you’re in the market for retail display furniture or shop fitting and like the sound of our team, give us a call on 01455 288 922 to see how we can help.