MANAGEMENT TODAY AWARDS FOR MANUFACTURING 2002: BEST ENGINEERING PLANT - The Amicus AEEU Award

HIGHLY COMMENDED - ALVIS VEHICLES

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To manage a plant in the defence industry, you need one eye on the long term, one on the short term - and steady nerves. Take 83-year-old Alvis Vehicles. Telford-based Alvis, which makes light and medium armoured vehicles in dozens of different permutations, is running at half factory capacity (in fact, half what it was doing two years ago). It expects no contracts from the MoD for the next couple of years. Gulp.