Insight

In seven years GripIt® Fixings has grown from a simple idea of a 13 year old boy to a manufacturing facility with the capability to produce GripIts in the millions. Claire Edwards, deputy editor, visited GripIt’s headquarters in Wiltshire to find out more about the UK fixing manufacturer and its meteoric rise.

In 2008 Jordan Daykin was a 13 year old boy who was helping his grandfather securing a blind to a window of a converted garage. The gap between the plasterboard and the steel lintel was too narrow and the drill bits kept snapping. The fixings available on the market at the time were not robust enough to secure the blind, so Jordan – along with his grandfather Stan – invented a new design of universal fixing that could be used with all types of plasterboard installation – the GripIt®.

“When GripIt was launched on the market it provided an instantly popular and winning solution to an enduring problem. Large stores, tradespeople and DIYers welcomed this simple method of wall hanging on plasterboard because of its ease of use, high performance and convenience – and because it instantly trumped all other similar products on the market,” states Nicky Harding, sales and marketing manager at GripIt.

In 2012 a patent was registered and the GripIt was launched on the market. In the same year, the first order of 25,000 fixings was placed by ScrewFix Online, and GripIt also gained its first UK retail stockist, Gardner & Scardifield Ltd.

By 2014, the GripIt was available in 500 UK stockists, however manufacturing was still being outsourced to other UK manufacturers. Needing investment for his own manufacturing facility, Jordan – now 18 years old and managing director of GripIt – appeared on the UK television series Dragons’ Den. After pitching for two hours, Jordan’s passion and knowledge gained the respect of Dragon Deborah Meaden, and Jordan became the youngest entrepreneur in the show’s history to receive an investment of GB£80,000.

The investment enabled GripIt to expand into another unit at its Trowbridge headquarters and establish a manufacturing facility on-site. “The GripIt is a British invention that is proud to be ‘Made in the UK’ for consistent quality and performance,” explains Nicky. “‘Made in the UK’ is a high accolade that customers can rely on, and more importantly – trust.”

Every part of the GripIt is now manufactured on-site, apart from its metal locking wings – which the company is planning to produce in-house in the near future. The company recently expanded its manufacturing capabilities with the introduction of three new machines. Now its manufacturing facility houses numerous plastic moulding machines, pin machines – invented by the GripIt team – and both a packing and sorting machine.

“Back when Jordan first started the company, his school friends used to sit around his grandparents kitchen table and assemble the GripIt fixing – our manufacturing facility is a far cry from those days,” says Nicky with a smile.

To further increase its efficiency, GripIt has zero plastic waste – with all plastic used in the manufacturing process recycled and reused. In September this year, GripIt’s manufacturing facility also obtained ISO 9001:2008 certification.

Even after all these developments, the company is still evolving and is now manufacturing – after feedback from customers – its ‘second generation’ fixing, which has been designed for use with all types of plasterboard installations. Like the original fixing, the second generation GripIt’s are available in four sizes: 15mm (yellow), 18mm (red), 20mm (brown) and 25mm (blue). Comprising of a circular plastic plug with a pair of uniquely designed slim gripping wings, the fixings are suitable for 9.5mm – 15mm plasterboard.

During installation the GripIt is inserted into a hole of the same diameter and tapped with a hammer to engage anti-rotation tabs. It is then screwed into place. “GripIt can be used on rendered or unrendered cavity walls, double thickness plasterboard, insulated plasterboard, or dot and dab walls,” points out Nicky. “It can be removed and reused indefinitely, adjusts to lining thicknesses and supports heavier loads. Our motto is simple: Just drill, tap and turn.”

To ensure that the second generation GripIt would meet the necessary shear and tensile strengths they were subjected to rigorous testing. A timber framework dimensionally representative of a domestic stud partition internal wall was erected and 15mm plasterboard was secured using drywall screws. Each type of GripIt fixing was separately secured into the plasterboard by following installation instructions. Using a specially designed test rig and digital weight monitor, each GripIt type was subjected to various shear and tensile tests. The results are displayed in the table below:

Recently, GripIt announced the appointment of a preferred global distributor partner – RS Components – for the second generation fixing. The partnership means the full range of GripIt fixings are now available in a total of 32 countries worldwide including Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Spain, South Africa, the Netherlands and Turkey. “RS Components has a global reach with a large customer base. With this new business relationship we feel we are on our way to achieving our ambitious goals,” comments Nicky.

GripIt has come a long way since the design of the original GripIt in a garden shed, and the family business still has ambitious plans for the future. The company is planning to continue the expansion of its manufacturing facility and is looking to develop new worldwide markets for the second generation GripIt and other new products. “The capabilities of the GripIt and the numbers produced will grow every year,” states Nicky. “We’re proud to be a British manufacturer and will constantly strive to achieve the best. Watch this space.”

www.gripitfixings.co.uk