Barloworld and Briggs hit by the economic downturn Photo courtesy of iStockphoto

Barloworld UK has announced it will cut costs and may reduce staff numbers in response to the decline in the UK economy.

However, the company says in a statement that while it looks for ways to reduce costs and wastage, it will also introduce products and processes to improve value-added services to all its customers.

Barloworld is attempting to minimise redundancies through various measures but says, "inevitably some job losses are expected".

Unconfirmed reports indicate as many as 150 jobs may go.

Geoff Tucker, UK managing director, says during these difficult economic times the company must become stronger, more efficient and ever more focused on delivering service excellence to customers. "Many of our customers will be looking at doing the same thing in their operations, so we must ensure that we are in a position to really add value to each one of them.

Tucker says the structural changes are being co-ordinated so there will be no disruption to service delivery. "We will emerge stronger and more resilient."

Barloworld employs over 1,100 people in the UK.

Another British operator, Briggs Equipment UK, is also believed to have laid off a number of staff, according to contributors to the Forkliftaction.com Discussion Forum.

The company has not responded to Forkliftaction.com News' requests for more information.

Briggs is the sole national distributor for Cat forklifts and offers a comprehensive range of Caterpillar counterbalance forklift trucks and warehouse equipment.

Meanwhile, Barloworld Handling has achieved ISO9001:2000 re-certification for the next three years after a recent BSI Strategic Review.

Chris Wren, national quality manager at Barloworld Handling, says current and future customers demand that it has solid quality procedures across all sections of business backed up by The British Standards Institute (BSI) & The United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS).

The ISO9001:2000 quality re-certification for all its mainland UK sites ensures customer satisfaction.

Wren explains the re-certification is very important as the company strives for continuous improvement and service excellence.

"ISO9001:2000 certification is a valuable asset to our business and assists us in setting us apart from our competitors. The next step for the business is to make the transition to the recently updated quality standards ISO9001:2008 within the next six months," adds Wren.