Temple stands down as 600 Group returns to profit and goes lean

Temple, who became chairman of the 600 Group in 2007 said the company at the time had "deep rooted and structural" issues which had been addressed leaving the group considerably stronger and well placed to proceed to the next stage of its development. Consequently, he believed it was a suitable time for me to stand down. Reporting on its annual performance today (27 July) Temple said the group had seen an improvement in its global markets. In November last year a machine tool manufacturing facility had been acquired in Tarnow, Poland for €1m. Since the acquisition, the production of machines previously outsourced to Asia had been transferred to the Polish facility where the process of introducing lean manufacturing methods was underway along with additional CNC equipment in order to increase capacity and future output. "Our new manufacturing company in Poland will allow us to transition to a new business model for machine tools. Our intention is to manufacture most of the Group's requirements in Poland and Heckmondwike (West Yorkshire)", Temple said. Chief executive David Norman said the group was now well positioned with a strong order book and the introduction of lean manufacturing would be the basis for further profitable development. Sales for the financial year ending May were up by 11% to £50.6m (2010: £45.4m) while pre-tax profit was £3.3m (2010: loss of £8.7m).