Antifriction Components, which supplies critical moving parts for industry, is creating the largest regional stock resource of its kind in the UK.
The upgraded branch in Avonmouth will keep stock for the specific needs of its regional client base and will enable easier access to the M4 and M5 motorways to further increase local service levels.
The firm, which was established and is still headquartered in Bristol in 1976, supplies over 250,000 lines such as bearings, belt drives, lubricants, seals, motors and fluid power products for process and general heavy industrial applications.
Antifriction’s National Distribution Centre, based at its Bristol HQ, will also offer additional, stock to the south west manufacturing and engineering industries.
Nathan Bunn, Avonmouth’s branch manager, heads up a team of eight staff. The branch, which re-opened in February, measures 3,500 square foot and has two deliveries vehicles operating from it to service the region.
In September 2020, the acquisition of the industrial business of the BRT Group was announced in a deal that made Antifriction the UK’s largest specialist distributor of its type, employing nearly 130 staff.
Antifriction added six depots from Wisbech-based BRT Industrial, mainly in the east of England and Scotland, to its own ten depots located largely on the west side of the UK, to create a UK-wide distribution network. Avonmouth is one of the depots transferred to Antifriction from BRT.
Craig Littler, Antifriction’s sales director for the south west and South Wales, says: ‘We’ve developed unrivalled access to the highest quality stock for our loyal client base in the south west over many years. This new centre continues this aim and finds new ways to cut delivery times and so help them minimise losses in production.’
Andrew Fleming, Antifriction’s managing director, adds: ‘Antifriction has been growing rapidly in recent years, and despite the difficult economic conditions, we continue to invest and look to the future.’
Antifriction is headquartered in Bristol with other depots in London, Swansea, Cwmbran, Dudley, Bolton, Ellesmere Port, Belfast, Stockton-on-Tees and Grangemouth. The BRT acquisition added to the above industrial supplies depots in Inverness, Doncaster, Grimsby, Wisbech, Wickford and Fareham.