Ward Hi-Tech: empowering manufacturers with flexible finance and instant inventory

Celebrating its 40^th birthday this year, Sheffield-based Ward Hi-Tech is a highly successful business built upon four essential foundations: providing top quality products; offering excellent customer service; maintaining high levels of stock in-house for rapid deliveries (including large capacity machine tools); and being as flexible as is humanly possible with aspects such as machine financing. Dave Tudor reports.

If I had to name one UK-based machine tool company that often sneaks under everyone’s radar, it would have to be Ward Hi-Tech. I’m hoping that this article will put the record straight because this is a business that carries vast amounts of stock, represents a raft of high quality South Korean and Taiwanese brands and offers what surely must be some of the most flexible customer finance packages available today.

In fact, every finance package is bespoke and tailored to the customer. This flexibility is only possible when you operate from a very secure, sound financial footing – and Ward Hi-Tech places a very large tick in that box.  

From ball skills to ball screws

January 1984 marks Ward Hi-Tech’s official launch. Managing director Alan Hill’s journey into machine tools is somewhat unusual because he began his working life as a professional footballer with Sheffield Wednesday – a career that was sadly brought to an abrupt end by every player’s nightmare – a broken leg.

Mr Hill recovered, but as is often the case following a serious injury, things were never quite the same. After a short stint in non-league, semi-professional football, he, in his own words and by his own admission had to find a “proper job” and that involved joining a local machine tool company in Sheffield where his engineering education began. He also went back to school on a day release basis, bagged some engineering qualifications and launched a career in machine tool sales. 40 years later, the rest is history. 

It's worth noting that Mr Hill started Ward Hi-Tech with just £250 in his pocket and no bank account. Small acorns and all that. And I don’t suppose he’s ever needed one – but his CV would certainly make interesting reading. From ball skills to ball screws!

Standing out from the crowd

The machine tool sector has always been an intensely competitive arena so it’s vitally important for companies to stand out from the crowd and differentiate themselves in the marketplace. As Alan Hill explains, for Ward Hi-Tech, this is reflected in the company’s product portfolio and the meticulously selected principals it represents.

“We decided pretty early on to focus less on high volume sales and more on supplying complete solutions rather than just machine tools,” he affirms. “Then, as the company evolved, we made the decision to stock large capacity machines and that’s been a real gamechanger for us.

“We represent six main principals in the UK and enjoy fantastically close working relationships with them all. Some have been nurtured over decades and we’re delighted to be able to call them friends as well as business partners.”

While large capacity machines make up a decent chunk of Ward Hi-Tech’s product range, it’s by no means the whole story. The company represents three South Korean principals, Hwacheon, Kiheung and HNK, and three from Taiwan – Dah Lih, SFM and Vision Wide.

Between them, the range is pretty all-encompassing. General, ‘conventional’ machining needs are well catered for via Hwacheon and Dah Lih. The former manufactures a variety of turning centres (2-axis, multi-axis, and driven tool), horizontal machining centres, 5-axis machines and vertical lathes. On lathes, typical sizes are 8” to 15” chuck diameters with configurations that take in Y-axes and sub-spindles – but there are larger options up to 32” chuck diameter and 3.5m or 5m between centres weighing 30 tonnes.  

Dah Lih, one of Taiwan’s best known machining centre manufacturers, also sits predominantly in that middle ground, producing vertical machining centres with X-axes from 720mm up to 3m, and also horizontal, 5-axis, and double column machining centres. Again, on the size front there are exceptions such as double column machines with up to 5m in the X-axis.

With the four other principals, things ramp up somewhat in the size department. Kiheung offers a variety of CNC bed type and travelling column milling machines. These are large frame machines with X-axis travels up to a whopping 15m.

SFM is a heavy-duty long bed and oil country lathe specialist with some models weighing in excess of 30 tonnes. Vision Wide manufactures large frame, moving bed and gantry style machining centres up to 10m in X. HNK produce CNC vertical turning machines and horizontal boring mills, together with a range of very heavy-duty roll turning lathes.

In stock and ready to go

“Without doubt, our main differentiator in the marketplace is the fact that we carry stocks of large machines here in Sheffield,” Mr Hill emphasises. “I could take you downstairs into our showroom now and show you a 5m between centres turning centre with 1.25m diameter chuck. I could also show you a 3.5m between centres, 27 tonne slant bed lathe with 32-inch chuck.

“Or I could show you crates that contain a new 4m X-axis double column machining centre from Vision Wide. Then we could look at a 1.6m diameter vertical turning lathe with driven tools from HNK. Both ready for immediate installation.

“Seriously, where else can you walk into a showroom and find that breadth of variety of large capacity machines? Of course we also stock a wide range of more conventionally sized equipment from Hwacheon and Dah Lih but the point here is that it’s all available in-house. We win a significant number of orders simply because we have the machines available and ready to ship to customers.”

A case in point was a recent example of a customer based in Stoke-on-Trent that had won a contract for the manufacture of large, square components. The solution was something like a large double column machine but the best quoted lead-time from other suppliers was eight months. Ward Hi-Tech was able to supply a Vision Wide SF 4120 (4m X-axis) machine from stock and bagged the order.

The ability to carry stock (typically around 40-50 machines at any one time with a street value of around £8m) is clearly an invaluable feather in Ward Hi-Tech’s cap – after all, everyone wants their machines yesterday – but another jewel in the crown is its ability to modify standard machines (particularly large variants) to meet bespoke requirements.

This could be something like customised tooling or workholding arrangements or modifications made to the machine specification.  It’s another example of how its highly skilled staff will go the extra mile to keep customers happy.

Flexible funding – and then some

I mentioned bespoke finance arrangements at the beginning of this article and a recent example clearly illustrates just how flexible Ward Hi-Tech can be in this regard. Mr Hill takes up the story.

“Just before Christmas last year we ordered two Kiheung U1200N universal bed mills with automatic indexing heads and 24-station toolchangers for stock – one with a 4m X-axis and the other with a 3m,” he explains.

“Then, early in 2024, a customer based in the South of England needed a large machine of this type for a particular project. They actually needed two machines but only had the budget for one. At that time, we knew of another customer who wanted to trade up their existing Kiheung U1200N so we ended up doing a deal where we bought the used machine and supplied it to the customer in the south to get them up and running straightaway. This was installed recently.

“The new 4m X-axis U1200N is now on its way and will join the used machine at the customer’s facility when it arrives making up the dual machine package the customer originally wanted.

“We essentially funded and orchestrated the whole thing,” Mr Hill says. “Not only were we able to supply two large machines quickly but we also came up with a bespoke finance package where the customer only had one payment to make up front as a deposit with the rest on an operating lease. This is how we win business; we’ll do everything we possibly can to help customers buy our machines in a way that suits them – and every situation is unique.”

And there’s more…

And if that’s not enough evidence, how about another customer, a leading hydraulics company based in Birmingham that clearly likes Ward Hi-Tech’s machines and service because they’ve bought a grand total of 17 machines over the years – many of them large capacity.

“On a recent purchase of a Hwacheon Hi-Tech 850 3.5m Y-axis extra-large turning centre, we let the customer have the machine from stock without any payment whatsoever because we knew he needed it urgently,” Mr Hill recalls.

“We structured a deal where we waived the upfront deposit and he took delivery – this was in the January. He didn’t make his first finance payment until the following October and we funded the VAT payment so that he effectively was able to use the machine free of charge for 10 months. We structured the deposit payment to kick in just before his first payment was due.”

The bottom line is that where finance is concerned, Ward Hi-Tech can and does provide an alternative funding facility for companies wanting to invest in machine tools. And in the words of Michael Caine – not a lot of people know that!   

Ward Hi-Tech
www.wardhitech.co.uk