The Taylor Studwelding Timeline - What's Our Story?

The story of our success has been an exciting one for us, and our journey along the way has been interesting to say the least! Here, we tell the story of Taylor Studwelding, from how we grew the company, entering the Chinese market, and how our stud welding machinery has changed over the years.

Where we started.

Taylor Studwelding was first established back in 1985 by David Taylor and his wife, Joan Taylor, working from a unit at County workshops in Dewsbury. Here, they sold Capacitor Discharge and Drawn Arc Studs and accessories to the UK market, whilst also designing the first range of Capacitor Discharge and Drawn Arc Taylor equipment. It wasn’t long before Taylor Studwelding employed their first engineer, Paul Gillings, back in 1988, followed by David Peaker (1993) and then Bob Edge.

By the early 1990’s, Taylor Studwelding worked out of 2 units at County Workshops and had employed further office staff, warehouse staff, sales representatives and a Sales Director. The company was now designing and producing equipment, offering sales of CD and DA equipment, equipment repair and running a hire pool of over 100 machines into the busy UK market, plus sales of studs and accessories. 

The company had grown quickly and needed much bigger premises. Always a good problem to have! Luckily, David Taylor, who is forever thinking ahead, had bought a plot of land on Commercial Road in Dewsbury some years earlier, and plans had been drawn up for a purpose-built factory complex.  During the early 1990’s work began on the build of the new factory in Dewsbury, and we finally moved in and began trading from here, our head office, in 1994.

Taylor Studwelding Systems Ltd were selling to the European market and worldwide, so we decided that we now needed to look for an Export Sales Manager. As a result, Stephanie Armstrong joined us in 1994. Stephanie was a graduate who had done business studies with Spanish and French, and her skills enabled us to set up a network of agents in both Spain and France, followed quickly by other European countries. We also made direct sales to end users worldwide.

In 1999 and after much research, Stephanie went on a trade mission to China. There, she met Jimmy You, who was her translator, and during this time, he had been chosen to translate for her because of his work within the welding industry and from being able to translate technical language. Together, David Taylor, Steph and Jimmy set up a representative office in Shanghai which, at the time, was just Jimmy in a one room office.

After a number of years and with much time, investment and many trips into China, we were able to move premises, employ further staff and build up the market to what we have today, which is a Head Office and manufacturing plant in Shanghai that builds equipment purely for the Asian markets and 5 offices throughout China. Taylor Studwelding currently employs up to 60 employees, mainly in Shanghai.

In 2019, we celebrated our 20th Anniversary of entering the Chinese market.

The late 1990’s saw Taylor Studwelding add to our range of equipment, offering bespoke CNC and automated equipment to the ever-growing and diverse Studwelding market. By the early 2000’s, we needed to recruit another engineer, Rob Norwell, to both work in house and on site worldwide installing CNC and automated machines. 

Over the years the CNC and automated machines have changed enormously in both style and technology. This means our engineers are constantly updating their skills and working with new products. You can walk through the factory to see engineers tinkering around with robots, apparently it is the only way to learn! They have been able to include robots to weld as part of some of the applications that are done automatically. The 2020’s will see more time and investment ploughed into CNC and Automation with the addition of robotics, which will allow us to enter new and emerging markets worldwide.

Successful ranges of machines over the years for Capacitor Discharge type welding include:

• Late 1980’s T Arc System 6,7,8,9,10 CD equipment was introduced to the market.

• This was followed by the 800 series CD equipment.

• Late 1990’s introduced the CD200 Range CD equipment.

• 2010 saw the CDM Range be introduced which is a current range, and the CDi Range added in 2016   

  
  

Drawn Arc type:

• The system 12 and system 16 were our first offering to the Drawn Arc market in the late 1980’s, followed by the 500 and 800 which could also offer Short cycle welding.

• 1990’s saw us upgrade the 500 and 800 Drawn Arc and Short cycle equipment’s to the 501 and 801 and introduce the Systems 1000, 1300 and 1600 Drawn Arc machines which allowed us to cover a large percentage of the welding sizes needed in the market.

• 2000’s was a busy beginning to a new millennium with investment in the bigger Drawn Arc units, seeing Taylor Studwelding to be able to offer larger machines (1700DA, 2200DA and 2700DA) and going into different markets, including construction.

• Coming forward to the 2010’s, our current range of machines for Drawn Arc were developed to include 800DA, 1200E, 1600E with various hand tools to suit most applications.

• 2020 will see us launch a new range of Drawn Arc Equipment which is currently at the test house stage… Watch this space.

  
  

Where we are today.

The Taylor Family now has 3 generations working in the company with Heather Taylor (Daughter) joining the company in 1996, having worked in all administrative roles within the company. Heather now takes care of the company accounts. Andrew Gillings (Grandson) began work within the family company in 2009. Andrew heads up UK sales and is well known to customers and work colleagues alike for his technical knowledge of Studwelding.

Taylor Studwelding are now leaders in the Studwelding industry, providing a range of stud welding services, including welding equipment hire. Get in touch for more information or browse our website to see what we offer.