Videos about Versatote and The CSS Group

Here we have created a number of videos to give you an insight into Versatote’s facilities and people.  We hope you find them useful.

Video 1: See the Versatote factory in action, making plastic tote and storage boxes at the Versatote factory. 

Video 2: Hear from directors James Head and Dr. Mike Sloan as they explain how the CSS Group of three separate companies works in partnership – providing a complete service for our customers.

The CSS Group Advantage

The group is made up of three separate companies and our customers are divided between those companies depending on their requirements and their specific markets.

So, we’re a toolmaking company, Investment Casting Systems, an injection moulding company, Casting Support Systems and we’re a Composites company called Technical Composite Systems.

And we supply everything from mould tools, required to make our components, to actually manufacturing components themselves. To the inspection and delivery of those components.

How the Group Started & Expanded

The CSS Group was established about 39 years ago by Ted Head, the MD. He started out as a toolmaker doing injection mould tools and was pattern dies. He stayed quite small for the first 15-20 years.

What we did roughly 10 years ago is we decided to go down the route of making larger tooling, because that was an area of the industry that was under-served.  And we could see that that was the only industry that people from outside of the UK couldn’t serve as well as people from the inside.

On the injection moulding side we went down the same route, so we went very very large on the moulding machines. So we got up to 1,000 tonne moulding machines. There aren’t many moulders in the UK with that size of equipment.

How we Help Our Customers

Our customers are wide and varied – they have high quality products, and they require a supplier with aerospace accreditations.

A customer will come to us and say “we want to develop this idea, we want to expand on this solution“. We’ll provide them design advice and material selection. We’ll then turn that design concept into a full computer-generated model. We can them simulate and predict how that’s going to perform. Not only in processes but in service. Then we can manufacture that mould tool and the components themselves and also help our customers in test and integration of those parts.

But where our customers’ really benefit is discussions at the earliest possible stage, and that’s what we enjoy the most.

As an engineering business, our equipment is fundamental to what we do. So, we select the right kit for the job, it’s new, it’s up-to-date, it’s accurate, it’s calibrated.

Keeping Up-To-Date

We’re constantly evolving the ideas that we put into the tooling and the products.

We’re talking to people all the time about what’s new, what’s coming into the market, what can we use now and bring it to our customers so that they have got the latest technology and the best solution.

Technical Composite Systems as one of the three companies in the CSS Group is complementary to our toolmaking and injection moulding business and actually utilises a lot of the expertise we’ve got already.

So, we’re working with composite materials where our customers’ needs are very demanding – always looking to lose weight whilst maintaining a high level of performance.

The tote bins we manufacture are going into larger companies with major warehouses and distribution networks. So, most of our tote bins are going onto automated warehousing systems, conveyors, robotics, and we have to design the product to suit.

When you combine top quality modern equipment with the staff that we have here – you’ve got really powerful tool.

We’ve got the right knowledge and skill-base behind us to give the customer the right solution.

Talk to Us

We’re engineers – we’re passionate about what we do, so if there’s a problem with your materials, your current suppliers; well, you’ve got an opportunity!

Please come and talk to us.