‘It’s been a great journey, 25 years has passed too fast,’ said Lee Marriott, Production manager for the electroless nickel plating division of CBE+, when his colleagues surprised him with an award yesterday for his outstanding service.
Lee has been with the organisation 25 years, starting on the shop floor on 3 rd June 1996 when the business, then NiTEC was a relatively small nickel plater in Sheep Bridge Chesterfield, employing only 10 people. Today Lee is responsible for a team of over 40 and the nickel plating used in many of the world’s finest engineered industries. Ranging from formula one race cars to oil rigs in the middle east.
Looking back on where it began Lee said “I finished my exams and remember thinking I was ready to get my foot in the door of a company where I could learn a skill. I had an interview for the job on the Friday and started on the Monday. I remember being so nervous, I can see the same emotions I felt on the faces of young new starters in the business now.”
Lee spent time supporting the skilled platers on the plating lines until he was eventually promoted to a be a plater himself, working from low value orders up to ‘high phosphorus’ oil and gas orders. After excelling in this area Lee was again promoted to watch over all high phosphorus lines as a supervisor training others to do the same due to the growing demand for this service in the oilfield industry. It was not long before Lee became the Manager of the shop floor.
“I recall in this time, we grew a lot, investing in new tanks to meet the demand of our customers. I was placed on a number or research and development projects to expand the service offering including zinc plating and chrome plating. But we always ended up coming back to what we do the best. Nickel.”
The business invested in setting up its own metal testing facility in 2013, allowing them to verify work as industries demands became more rigorous. Lee worked on developing Spire labs where chemistry was made for the tanks alongside testing of the finished products.
In 2017 Marie Cooper and Chris Brown invested into the businesses and quickly saw Lee’s potential, promoting him to Production Manager, the role he holds to date, where he manages production, scheduling, health and safety, recruitment, mentoring, continuous improvement and works closely with our customers both on and off site.
“Since becoming part of the CBE+ group the changes have been massive and have pushed us in the right direction. We are structured and more efficient. Working together, achieving more. Marie and Chris are investing in the future of the business and its going from strength to strength. I am excited to see how we can even more closely with precision engineering when we are all on one site.”
He continued “The best part of the job has to be, after all this time, is that I never know what might come through the door and the story behind each of the components that we plate. The fact we work as a team and find a way to support these world class industries, all from our factory in Chesterfield, makes me very proud of the team and our business.”
CBE+’s core capabilities revolve around but are not limited to precision engineering, electroless nickel plating, gear manufacture and metal testing. We can provide each service independently or combine our multiple capabilities to create tailored, integrated supply chain solutions.
We provide unmatched production capacity and turnaround times.
We have an extensive range of highly equipped in-house inspection and testing facilities.
We are introducing automated processes to our capabilities creating industry leading efficiencies.
We offer technical consultancy to develop and deliver exact procedures to meet your specific requirements
We have some of the largest plating tanks in Europe.
