It's no use pretending that the manufacturing and process industries are in any other than a battered state. The slowdown in UK manufacturing we have all experienced has been confirmed by a survey which showed firms wrestling with a loss of profitability and export orders. According to the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply, the sector failed to see growth pick up in February as the impact of the strong pound and high input costs continued to be felt. It's not all negative, however. Those organisations that are doing well are the ones which have adapted to their business surroundings and success stories are highly visible in difficult areas such as the engineering, manufacturing and process sectors. We have seen closer working relationships also being forged between our universities and colleges and the region's industry. As an example of a North-East company adapting itself to new situations is Houghton International which is aiming to triple its turnover to £6m in just two years. The Newcastle-based firm has been winning contracts all over the world in the past three years, building staff numbers to 40, and now managers believe they will need another 30 staff to generate the extra income they are targeting. Its latest contract win is another step back to profitability for Houghton, following the disastrous impact of the collapse of US power company Enron in 2001. The family-run businesst had to sack nearly half its 75-strong workforce at that time, since so much of its income was tied up in work for Enron. But, changing the make-up of the company to service a wider client base has helped turn it around. Alongside more work in the US for General Electric, Houghton has also worked as far afield as Nigeria, Bali and Indonesia. Commercial director Michael Mitten is aware that its strategy has been developed from hard times. He says: "Our target is to be a £6m company by January 31, 2007 and we have got good plans to get there. "Going back three years, we were predominantly a manufacturer in the power sector, supplying customers with component parts for large, high voltage, generators. Then Enron collapsed and the market disappeared overnight, so the pressure was on us to reinvent ourselves. "We developed a proposition based on fast-response repairs, which is what we do for our traditional manufacturing and building service customers, and rolled that out into the power sector. And it's really picking up pace. "Our vision is to be a leading player in the global market for servicing rotating electrical machines and to be the number one employer in our industry in the UK. "The strategy for achieving this is firmly in place, and we are on target according to all key indicators. Hopefully the growth will continue." Houghton's most recent piece of business has been helping to keep the UK's most northerly town warm with a vital £110,000 contract. The company's staff has repaired a six megawatt diesel generator which gives heat and light to the town of Lerwick in the Shetland Isles, 170 miles north of the Scottish mainland. | 
