Jonathan Oldroyd has worked at Apex for 26 years. His father founded Apex in 1986 and now, along with his brothers, Jonathan helps manage the day to day activity of the company.

While Jonathan’s title is “General Manager”, he has special responsibility for the Strip and Assessment Department and works to balance his responsibilities within the department with other managerial tasks, client communication and people management.

A typical day is dictated by the phone – it changes minute by minute!

Constantly on the go, Jonathan has to prioritise tasks quickly, adapting to a changing schedule.

When hydraulics come in for repair, operatives in the large “Strip and Assessment” workshop strip them down to their base parts. Hydraulics Rams / Cylinders and boxes of small components are laid out in neat lines on wooden pallets, ready for Jonathan to assess.

Having worked initially as a hydraulic cylinder strip operative, Jonathan’s years of experience are essential in deciding upon an accurate estimate of the time and materials that each repair will entail. Sometimes a repair may be simple; at other times new parts will need to be designed, in which case he needs to assess why the part has failed and how it can be improved. On occasion this will involve communicating with the design team to ensure that an accurate costing of the repair work can be made. Once he has made a full assessment he is able to go back to the client with a quote for the work.

In 1986, Apex worked mostly with the mining industry; a sector that was an extremely harsh environment for machinery. Therefore at the beginning of his career, Jonathan became familiar with accepting commissions for things that looked irreparable.

Some of the hydraulics were in shocking condition; rods bent onto cylinders – tubes bent and dinted!

More recently, hydraulics tend to come in from the steel industry, as well as offshore work, recycling, and manufacturing. Apex are proud to have accepted all jobs, no matter how difficult they appear to be. They have yet to find an hydraulic cylinder that they have been unable to repair! While occasionally advising clients that a replacement might be cheaper, in the majority of cases Jonathan is able to suggest a cost effective way of repairing the hydraulic system and, together with the design team, can come up with a solution for the client.

Sometimes the client may want different specifications for the repaired product than it originally had. Together with the design team, Jonathan is able to assess the pricing on adapting the rods or cylinders to be stronger, lighter or more efficient than the original manufacturer equipment.

Occasionally Jonathan may be called out to a site to assess a cylinder that cannot be removed from its location. In most cases though, he is able to price up the repairs from a distance as the sales personnel are also very good technically and are usually able to communicate to Jonathan the extent of the damage.

As a man who himself has learnt on the job, going from strip operative, to assessor, to General Manager; Jonathan understands and appreciates the need for developing apprentices. Indeed, Apex appear to have an extremely low staff turnover and many of their personnel have been there most of their working lives. Therefore Jonathan also puts time into ensuring that the younger apprentices are assisted and taught where necessary. The strip operatives are always welcome to contact the works manager if they run into difficulty, who in turn may turn to Jonathan if there is a complication.

We’re always busy… the day passes quickly.

From office, to client meetings, to phone calls, to workshop; Jonathan is on the go all day, but enthusiastic about his involvement in overseeing the day to day workings of Apex.