'We have a passion for attachments'

Within 18 years of cooperation, Worsley Plant developed a great relationship with Dutch manufacturer Rotar, for whom the company is the exclusive distributor for the UK. Both partners focus on high quality, a strong orientation towards the special needs of the end customer, and reliable service. This way they managed a lot of challenges and worked out special projects together.

Established in 1996, Worsley Plant from Middlewich is a specialized supplier of attachments. There is a special focus on selling devices of seven main brands; one of them is Rotar. Adrian Nixon, now owner and managing director of the company, started with Worsley in 2005. At first, he was a service engineer, then the after sales-manager, after that, the operations manager and company manager until he took over the company in 2024. With 22 employees Worsley Plant has earned an enviable reputation for excellence and is considered a competent and reliable partner for his customers. Unsurpassed expertise, a great product range, and their relentless focus on customer service took them into this position.

Partnership based on the same values

All these characteristics are also part of the DNA of ROTAR. The partnership started in 2007, when Worsley was looking for a partner for screening buckets. “Our company started off as a contractor for crushing and screening, then later also sold the equipment. This is why we went to shows like bauma to find a good screening solution, because we already had been busy with crushing’, Adrian recalls. The first thing they bought from Rotar was the EVB segregator bucket.

Within the first year of the cooperation, the number of sold attachments slowly climbed; now, Rotar is volume-wise a very important partner for Worsley with now an average of 120 to 150 attachments per year. The big change within the relationship came when Worsley put Rotar grapples into their portfolio. As UK customers really liked the grapples, business grew very quickly.

Adrian likes the Rotar attachments because they are built very well and they are constantly optimized according to the needs of the customer. He says, ‘At Rotar, they are always focused on the dedicated attachments. Over time, we have seen that the attachments have been streamlined and evolved, something we appreciate a lot. For us, performance and quality are two main things we look for in our products, and Rotar is definitely high-performance in both.’

Long history in cooperation

Managing partner Louis Brockhuizen recalls that in September 2024, Worsley Plant reached a special milestone: they had bought 1,000 Rotar attachments. And he had a big surprise for the former owner, Sean Heron: he, Adrian, and his team did not only receive the 1000^th attachment with a special label and a big cake for the special occasion. Also, Louis had secretly applied in the name of Worsley Plant for the award “Supplier of the Year”, which is given out at the British Demolition Awards in London. Still, after all these years of cooperation, it became a big surprise for both that Sean Heron finally received the award for Worsley Plant.

Characteristics about the UK market

According to Adrian, compared to other European countries, the UK industry is quite tough on attachments, because operators like to work their attachments very hard. This is the reason they might find weak points in attachments quicker than others. Worsley and Rotar worked on further improvement of the attachments, with Rotar putting in modifications and changes from the feedback that they have been given. Both companies consider their long-lasting cooperation a bit like a good marriage, with both putting in a lot of effort. Sometimes, there may be tough times, but with a good understanding from knowing each other so long, differences are worked out, and both partners come out of the challenge much stronger.

Most of Worsley’s business is done with long-term customers. They don’t try to sell just one attachment but are always looking for the repeats, as they have a real passion for attachments. The Team of Worsley is really living this passion; they look at the market, the competition and get an overall view, of how things in the industry work out, about advantages and disadvantages, and steadily increase their knowledge and experience.

When giving advice to a new customer, they take a close look at the job the entrepreneur is doing and try to ask him the right questions to find out what is really important to him. Worsley Plant is often called once companies have tried attachments from other manufacturers without success. They will then look closely at it on site; e.g., if it is a high-reach application or for a tough structure, they will then offer their best attachment type matching with the excavator to get the best result. For Adrian, it’s also very important to look at the specification and give customers an idea of how to achieve higher productivity.

In case of problems, people at Worsley Plant can help their customers quickly and often have the spare parts in stock needed to fix it, as they have around 250,000 pounds worth of stock in parts for Rotar. If they don’t have it in stock, they talk to Rotar and they always find a way to send it over as fast as possible.

Special projects together

Adrian and his team are quite often the first to take on new attachments from Rotar: Like their customer Austin Wilkinson who bought the first RDP70, Worsley was also one of the first to buy the new RCC series.

Sometimes, Rotar and Worsley together make special customer wishes come true: for a good customer who liked the configuration and the teeth of the RDP70 but needed a smaller version of the RDP to match with his machine, Rotar did a redesign, optimized the processor, and like that built the RDP50. For this model there is already good feedback.

‘In my opinion it is very important that Rotar as a manufacturer listens closely to those who use the device every day, the voice of the good end user with constructive feedback is a powerful one – and they listen to it. This way they build attachments that are really needed within the market,’ Adrian concludes.