Established in 1946, Alf England is one of the county’s largest and respected motorcycle specialists, renowned as one of the UK’s top Yamaha dealers. The four-generation family business first chose Dura, the original innovators of the integrated workshop system, for its main service workshop in 2002. Over the last 20 years, Alf England has steadily added to its facility and expanded their workshop with Dura furniture throughout.
In 2023, Alf England sought to further its offer with specialist services, including customisation, suspension rebuild and tuning and performance enhancement, building a new dedicated workshop. To get the most from their new facility, Alf England turned to their team of trusted technicians to design their dream workbench.
Their concept was inspired; central to the design was set-back open cabinet with a single vice mounted on a thick, stainless-steel top. Within was a full width, retractable drip tray, topped with a perforated panel to catch any liquids from components. Combined, this enabled technicians to get closer to the job, whilst also keeping all fluids from the floor, increasing safety and cleanliness, both critical factors when working with suspension.
Accompanying this is a shallow sink mounted onto a 1200mm width unit with a shallow drop, ensuring all liquids would drain into a waste-oil catch tank within. A perforated panel was added to the sink, offering a totally flat work surface for technicians.
Alf England turned to Dura with the concept and asked if it was possible. Working collaboratively, the design was further enhanced by Dura and it’s near three-decades of workshop design and manufacturing experience.
The design was finalised by Dura’s in-house team in Brackley and manufactured at Dura’s owned production facility in Plymouth, UK. The 90,000sqft facility is home to some of the most advanced manufacturing machinery in Europe.
Once fully built, tested and approved to Dura’s uncompromising standards of quality, the furniture was delivered directly to Alf England where two members of the Dura Install Team completed the entire install of their second workshop in just one day.
Today, Alf England’s technicians have a world-class environment to complete specialist tasks. This clean space is essential to many of these tasks, which can now be completed with greater ease and efficiency. Features, such as the retractable drip tray, increase the safety, efficiency, and practicality of the space to unparalleled levels.
Speaking of the final result, Steve Cole, fourth generation of Alf England, commented, “We went to Dura with just a sketch on a scrap of paper and they have created a product that exceeds every wish and requirement we could have asked for. Even our specialist suspension partners don’t have facilities like this.
He continued “There is nobody else we would use for a professional environment. Some of our workshop furniture has done 20 years and it works just as well now. You won’t get that from off the shelf stuff. If somebody is thinking of a workshop, hands down, Dura.”
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Member-created content 9 months ago | From members