Posted by katherine.owen
Friday, 2 Sep 2011
Glen Dimplex are best known for their appliance brands Newworld, Belling and Stoves, and for the quality British engineering they put into their products. In fact the Glen Dimplex family is the only manufacturer to build the majority of its products here in the UK. To find out exactly how Glen Dimplex create their Best of British appliances we visited their head office and manufacturing plant. And here’s what we found...
Showcasing the best and brightest that this family of brands had to offer, it was clear that the people at Glen Dimplex really love the hands on approach. Holding up to even the most technical questions we could think of, we felt a genuine sense of pride from the manufacturer - they really are appliance experts. They have a real passion for their British heritage, but from the shop floor to the sales room the main message was always that the customer comes first.
So after attempting to exhaust their product knowledge, we put in our earplugs and embarked on a tour of the factory to see, with our own eyes, this quality engineering and customer focus in practice.
The Glen Dimplex factory tour
This was the first time most of us had been into an appliance manufacturing factory and the amount of ingenuity exercised in the plant was overwhelming. My personal highlight was seeing the enamelling process from start to finish.
We were shown the secret ingredients that make up Glen Dimplex’s own special recipe for Pristine enamel. They let us see how it was pounded, mixed and sprayed onto the necessary components, then fired in the huge furnaces. The transformation is fantastic and seeing it first hand, from start to finish really is a privilege.
But here’s the most important thing we learned from Glen Dimplex...whether it’s a thousand pound range cooker or a value first time appliance, every cooking cavity and appliance they make uses exactly the same quality of high glass content enamel. It means that not only will it be more efficient at keeping the heat where it belongs, but it makes grease and dirt so much easier to clean off. Looks beautiful too!
It was on entering the product testing department that the pure commitment to quality really hit home. Having just seen the very same appliances assembled and checked moments before, we saw how Glen Dimplex randomly took appliances from the production line and tested them over a period of time to truly confirm their quality. It was wonderful to see the level of dedication and craftsmanship that went into making these appliances and I think it’s safe to say, we were all officially impressed!