After almost 100 years in the Belgrave area of Leicester, BUSM has relocated to a purpose built building in Enderby, Leicestershire. The building was officially opened in mid-December 2002 by Jon Moulton of Alchemy Partners, a private shareholder in the Company.

The new manufacturing area includes an impressive range of shoe machines, new cutting systems and the footwear components production plant. Demonstrations were held of new 2D and 3D CAD systems launched in 2002, providing a low cost entry into shoe CAD design which matches or out-performs far more expensive systems. A new range of cutter/plotter machines has been launched with excellent features, and at a cost which any shoe company, regardless of size, can afford.

The warehousing area contains around a million spare parts to keep the many thousands of BUSM machines throughout the world working. Access to the spare parts business has been widened, by introducing the USM Direct web site, where parts can be ordered quickly and efficiently. Increasing footwear materials business has also benefited from the new warehousing area, as it has enabled an even greater range of products to be held in stock. This, together with the expanding components cutting operation, enables market requirements to be met quickly, thereby reducing the need for large customer inventories.

The company continues to invest significantly in research and development to keep its products at the forefront of the industry, and the new Combined Roughing and Cementing machine will become available in greater numbers during 2003. It is looking to build on recent success by further expanding export business, particularly into Asia. Exports already account for around 80% of turnover.

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