World Pumps - Gearing up for growth

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World Pumps meets Muffett Engineering Solutions, a UK-based bespoke manufacturer of gear pumps.

Muffett Engineering Solutions is a family-owned UK company with a rich history that is at the cutting edge of gear pump manufacturing.

SH Muffett Limited trading as Muffett Engineering Solutions was founded in 1920 as a general engineering firm and began specializing in gears around the Second World War.

Today the largest part of Muffett’s business is the manufacture and assembly of special gears, mechanisms and gearboxes that are made to suit customers’ specific requirements. Muffett has a full manufacturing and assembly facility in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, employs approximately 40 people and has a turnover of around £10 million.

Everything that Muffett manufactures is a bespoke product for a customer. Pumps are quite a large part of the company’s business, with Muffett able to do full assembly up to testing.

Muffett can either manufacture and build an entire pump or supply component parts for many different types of pumps, including peristaltic, hydraulic, and rubber impeller.

Exports account for over 60% of Muffett’s business. The company supplies to Europe and America, and quite a lot of its product is shipped to China.

“We have to continually evolve as a business and that’s what keeps our competitive edge,” says Muffett Engineering Solutions director Mark Jagelman.

The company offers a full design and consultancy service based on many years of deep knowledge and expertise in the sector, coupled with investment in the latest technology and machinery.

It is this value added proposition that sets Muffett apart. Customers can come with an idea, get the consultancy, have the product designed and made, in an end to end solution taken up to testing.

One of the reasons for the company trading as Muffett Engineering Solutions is that it offers this end to end solution. Muffett gets involved with its customer at the conceptual stage, offering design support. That way, the product can be produced within the customer’s budget, and function within the required specifications.

Muffett operates as a supply partner rather than just as a supplier. The company works closely with its customers to achieve their end goals and growth and has secured the supply chain of raw materials and services to offer pretty much fixed pricing through a contract duration. With most of its customers, Muffett will enter into service level agreements for anything from 12 to 36 months.

While Muffett has never had a part of its business offshore, the company is finding that many of its customers want to reshore products.

Over the last five years, Muffett has reshored a significant amount of business. “We’ve done that through continuous investment. We have a lot of automation here on site. This means that we are cost competitive with the lower cost countries,” explains Jagelman.

So what differentiates Muffett from the competition? “I think personally it is that we are a family-owned business,” says Jagelman.

“And we’ve got a huge amount of experience,” adds Sarah Ebbrell, a director of Muffett Engineering Solutions and a great granddaughter of company founder Stanley Herbert Muffett.

“We’ve got a number of people who have worked here from apprenticeship stage for the last 35 years. And then we’ve got apprentices as well. So we’ve got a really broad span of expertise.”

Jagelman himself started as an apprentice at Muffett 35 years ago. “Because we work in so many different markets, and we work with so many different customers, that brings knowledge into the business as well,” notes Jagelman.

Muffett is a company with a lot of history, expertise and knowledge built up over many years, that has also invested in people and equipment. Refreshed and energized by Ebbrell coming into the family business, Muffett is now geared up to push forward for rapid, targeted growth.

Mark Jagelman and Sarah Ebbrell, directors of Muffett Engineering Solutions, spoke to Roisin Reidy, deputy editor of World Pumps magazine.

This article first appeared in the July/August 2024 issue of World Pumps magazine. To read the full issue, click here.