Scottish Enterprise Awards 2019

22 | SME NEWS - Scottish Enterprise Awards 2019 The quality market leader in the manufacturing and delivery of coffins, this successful family business has been established for four generations and looks geared for success for many years to come. We caught up with Managing Director, Martin Smith to discover more about this award-winning firm. Based in Annan, Dumfriesshire and Galloway, DFS CASKETS has long proven itself as market leaders in the manufacture and delivery of quality coffins. Supplying funeral directors throughout Scotland, Northern England and Northern Wales, this firm has established an exceptional reputation for providing coffins and caskets of the highest calibre. It may be surprising to know that all coffins are not the same, with each manufacturer’s offerings varying in features; styles and quality of assembly. Most people have limited experience of funerals, so selecting a coffin, whilst arranging a funeral can be a daunting experience. Using a trusted supplier like DFS however, ensures loved ones will always receive products befitting the professionalism and respectfulness that these saddest of occasions deserve. As a small to medium coffin manufacturer, DFS cannot benefit from the economies of scale available to its’ larger rivals. “We have become precision engineers in wood” explains Managing Director Martin Smith, “We can’t compete on price, so we have to compete on quality. Even our new cardboard coffins have been designed Best Coffin Manufacturer 2019 to be stronger and more resilient than their established rivals. When you’re smaller and have less resources than your competitors, you have to be better to survive.” This strategy has served them well in their Scottish home, where consumers are generally more quality conscious, with a higher proportion of individuals choosing to be buried rather than cremated. Recently however, in reaction to a growing demand for more price conscious funerals, the company has begun manufacturing cardboard coffins, breaking the monopoly of Southern English companies, in providing a cheaper alternative to traditional coffins. Widely considered to be innovators in their field, Martin and his team have developed and introduced several new machines now commonly adopted throughout the industry. Continual investment in research and development and the adoption of new technology is at the forefront of their success. “Although we try to set the standard by which all coffins are measured, I still have many ideas as to how we can improve our quality even further,’ Martin explains, ‘but like most small businesses, we can only implement changes as and when finance becomes available.” These restrictions and limitations have not dampened Martin’s drive and ambition, with his current attention centred on automated spraying. “We want to be the first UK coffin manufacturer to spray robotically: which is an extremely difficult ambition to achieve. Our products are designed to be buried or cremated, so environmental legislation regarding their composition is very restrictive. To lower solvent emissions, the varnishes we use have become very viscous, making them extremely difficult to spray robotically. Consequently, we are now in our fourth year of development, with our aim to spray our first coffin in spring 2020. It has taken a huge amount of work and resources, but when we succeed, our quality should reach a whole new level.” This is just the company’s latest act as a ‘disruptor’ and in 2015 it launched a world first, with its’ coffin design software Family Assistant. “We supply a large geographic area and each area has its own preference in terms of the coffins that they use. Our product range is therefore huge and far larger than can effectively be displayed in a brochure. We designed ‘Family Assistant’ to allows users to quickly and easily create any coffin in our range, by exploring and selecting the various options available.” This app, once downloaded, allows clients to custom build their coffins and is an exciting development in the industry. It is this sort of practical thinking that keeps a smaller company like DFS CASKETS at the forefront of its industry. In an increasingly competitive industry, slowly decreasing in size due to mergers and acquisitions, DFS Caskets continues to flourish, through innovation and reputation. Contact: Martin Smith Company: DFS CASKETS LTD Telephone: 01461 205114 Website: www.dfscaskets.co.uk