Growth continued on a haphazard basis until 1963 when Hoover, then in Perivale, made a new electric motor and W H Doherty & Co got the business of making the armature shaft. So began the business of spindle and shaft specialisation. The life of that particular shaft for Hoover was well in excess of 10 years and lasted long after Hoover had left their Perivale factory. The long life of this product and the excellent learning opportunity it gave the company, together with the new technologies and international relationships that were being built up enabled the company to stay in the forefront of the market.
Good contracts from Borg Warner, Black & Decker and Electrolux kept the company learning and listening and up to date. At one stage the company was supplier of the year to all the above companies. In January 1984 the company moved again, this time to a 30,000 sq ft factory in Lode Lane, Solihull where the Group head office remains today.
Nevertheless, the signs that the UK market would not be enough were already showing through and so the company started to position itself for the export market with particular emphasis on Germany. First success came with Boschin Buhl in the Black Forest, then Bosch Fuerbach near Stuttgart, thenSiemens in Wurzburg. This lead to a big opportunity of the new generation of generator motors to be made by Bosch in Miskin, South Wales.
The big push into the German market and the concentration on spindle manufacturing meant that all the company's capital resources were being funnelled in one direction. That is into expensive long-turning machines, induction heat treatment equipment and grinding machines. This left little capacity for the original and wider range of turned parts that the company had been founded on. There was a risk that most of the company's customers would be lost because of the new niche development.
This problem was solved by joining forces with a world class, Swiss turned part manufacturer that was looking for new representation in the UK. They would supply us on an exclusive basis and we would guarantee them an agreed amount of business. So that the profits made on buying and selling should not get mixed up with the profits made in manufacturing a second company was formed in 1976 and called N&J Engineering, named after Patrick Doherty's children, Nanette and James.
