The future
Both 2001 and 2002 were profitable years for the Preston plant. By the end of 2002 the plant had also captured the majority of Hewlett-Packard’s Canadian business and was being asked to work on several other large projects.
‘Hewlett-Packard now seems particularly keen to work with us. I’m sure that one reason is that we have been obliged to understand their way of doing business. It has helped us with our own suppliers also. We have already given considerable assistance to our main paper supplier with improving their own internal process control procedures. Recently we were in a meeting with people from all different parts of HP. There was all kinds of confidential information going around. But you could never tell that there was an outsider (us) in the room. They were having arguments amongst themselves about certain issues and no one could have been there without feeling that basically we were a part of that company. In the past they’ve always been very close with some information. Basically the change is all down to their new found trust in our capabilities.’ (Tom Branton)