History

1960's - Foundation

Keyford was founded in 1967 by Bert Pettengale with the aim of offering the very best mechanical manufacturing services to the engineering industry. Initially based in the Keyford area of Frome, the company steadily grew from those beginnings, expanding and improving the scope and capacity it offered its customers.

1970's - Early Growth & Expanding Capabilities

Wider machining capabilities and fabrication facilities were added during the 1970's and in the early 1980's Alan Pettengale joined his father at Keyford, opening an electronic engineering department within the company.

It was during this period that Keyford successfully took its first steps into the aerospace ground support equipment sector, gaining a significant customer in the shape of British Airways. This married well into both the established mechanical engineering department and the newly formed electrical and electronics department.

1980's - Further Expansion & New Premises

Growth of the company continued and in 1984 the company moved to its present Olympic House location. Keyford's excellent customer service and reputation lead to the company securing work from further established names such as GE Aircraft and Rolls-Royce. With Alan Pettengale taking over as Managing Director, the company continued to move forward, expanding in both its mechanical and electrical departments.

By this time Keyford was well established as a key supplier to the aerospace industry adding Westland Helicopters (now AgustaWestland) and Westland Industrial Products as customers towards the end of the decade. It also consolidated its service to many local and general engineering customers, offering manufacturing solutions tailored to suit all customers whatever their needs.

1990's - New Approvals & Preparation for the Future

With the advent of BS5750, Keyford once again identified the future requirements that customers would demand, and quickly moved towards gaining the approval. The standard itself was evolved into an ISO format and Keyford was approved to the new ISO9002 standard in 1993. Keyford has continuously held an ISO approval ever since and currently holds the latest ISO9001 approval.

During this era the move to CNC equipment began and the first seeds of a management team to take the company forward were sown.

2000's - Continuous Improvement & New Ownership

As Keyford moved into the new century it did so with new focus on customer requirements. Working with one of its main customers, Keyford underwent a significant reorganisation of its premises and significant improvements were made to the job control systems, giving better vision of work loading and keeping orders on track.

By 2003 the Pettengale family had passed day to day running of the company over to a management team of  three, led by Steve Denmead who became General Manager. Assisted by Quality Manager Andy McPherson and Works Manager Mark Wain, the team had over 40 years of service with the company between them by that time.

Although this team continues to lead Keyford to this day, the ownership of the company changed in 2007 when a long planned MBO was completed, with ownership being passed to Steve Denmead and Andy McPherson

Steve and Andy were keen to build on the excellent reputation Keyford already held with its core customers and take the business to the next level, further improving our service to all customers.

2010's - The Next Step

With the full support of an experienced team underneath them, the Directors of Keyford have driven forward change throughout the company, installing an improvement culture at every level and striving to give our customers a constantly improving level of service.

With continued investment in equipment and infrastructure at our premises and restructuring the organisation of our staff, Keyford have added additional capabilities and improved work flow within the company, returning gains in both lead-time and on-time delivery for our customers.

Signatories of the SC21 programme since 2008, Keyford have worked hard to reach formal recignition status on the scheme and this was achieved in October 2012 when Keyford were given the Bronze Award. This achievment was not gained easily and has been the culmination of 5 years hard work by all of Keyford's staff. For more information on the award and SC21 itself, please visit our Approvals page.