Local charity, manufacturer and East Midlands Chamber member Aquabox has joined the East Midlands Manufacturing Network.  The charity was introduced to the network by charity trustee Rob Barlow, owner of TDP in Wirksworth and member of the Derbyshire group. Rob provides marketing support for the charity in his role as trustee.

Founded in 1992, the Aquabox charity operates with just two part time members of staff and is run almost entirely by local volunteers, to produce family water filters at their site in Wirksworth, Derbyshire.  The filters are then packed with other emergency supplies into their Aqua-aid boxes, which are then distributed around the world to countries suffering from natural and man-made disasters, providing safe drinking water to hundreds of thousands of people. Their supplies are exported thanks to the efforts of a volunteer logistics co-ordinator.

Roger Cassidy chair of Aquabox trustees with fellow trustees Rob Barlow and Cheryle Berry

Following an upgrade of their production room and the introduction of lean manufacturing through a project led by Dominic Wish, their trustee responsible for Operations earlier this year, production has already doubled at the site and there is still capacity to increase this further if the charity is successful in securing additional funding and donations.  The water filter production room runs 4 days a week, with 135 volunteers contributing to run Aquabox and its operations.

East Midlands Manufacturing Network Advisor, Debbie Rogers commented: “I recently visited Aquabox with Rob Barlow and it was fantastic to meet the volunteers working on site that day.  This is a great opportunity for us to welcome another East Midlands manufacturing business to the network and at the same time support a very impressive local charity.  We look forward to Dominic joining our meetings to share more about the Aquabox story and in particular their learnings and success as a result of introducing lean manufacturing. 

We hope that they will also benefit by becoming part of our growing collaborative and supportive East Midlands Manufacturing Network community.” Rob Barlow said, “Supporting Aquabox was a very easy decision, the water filters save lives worldwide and the unique feature for a charity, that they actually manufacture the family filter, is an added bonus to anyone that loves manufacturing and being able to witness first hand all the great work that our amazing volunteers do.”