COMPANY HISTORY
1980 Alfred Cheyne left school aged 16 and served an apprenticeship in Marine Engineering and Hydraulics.
1987 Alfie Cheyne became self-employed and started a small engineering establishment at Unit 4a North Castle Street, Banff. With demand from the offshore industry, Alfie became a Down Hole Safety Valve Specialist, travelling and working through out Europe and Asia, in remote offshore operations.
1993 Alfie Cheyne established a small engineering repair workshop at Montbletton, near Banff. The Montbletton establishment grew very quickly with ten employees within the first eighteen months, carrying out service and repairs to the Scottish Fishing Fleet. A manufacturing base was established with a break through into the manufacturing of Deck Machinery.
1994 ACE Winches was awarded contract to manufacture it's first set of large split winches complete with a computerised Autotrawl system.
1995 Due to growing demand and further manufacturing contracts, a new factory was built. With larger and more modern machinery, this new facility allowed additional projects to be handled.
1997 Benefiting from the change towards Twin Rig Fishing as opposed to traditional Scottish Seine Net Fishing, the Company delivered a record number of Fishing Vessel Deck Machinery packages.
2000 Having added additional office space and an in-house Computer Aided Design Facility, the Company further expanded productivity, delivering 15 new and 18 refitted deck machinery packages to vessels ranging from 10 to 62 metres in size.
2002 Continuing demand necessitated further production facility expansion, with a 500 sqm fabrication factory, a spray painting shop and further storage space being added to ACE Winches Montbletton site.
This year also saw the Company's percentage in the worldwide marine and offshore markets increase.
2003 As well as investing in larger machine shop equipment, the Company purchased a large number of winches from 5 to 200 tonnes pull for use in the winch hire market. In addition, a number of diesel and electric hydraulic power units were manufactured to complement the winch hire fleet.
Staff investment and training were also highlighted by the awards achieved nationally by both administration and machine shop staff.
2004 - 2005 ACE Winches high standard of workmanship was recognised with accreditation to ISO 9000:2001 by Lloyds Register for the design, manufacture, hire, commisioning and sale of winches and deck machinery.
ACE Winches commitment to it's people was also recognised as ACE Winches achieved Investors In People accreditation.
The ACE Winches Hire Personnel Division was established with fully trained offshore service winch operators and experienced hydraulic service technicians, available to travel to worldwide locations on short notice.
Investment in the ACE Winches Hire Equipment Division continued with well in excess of £1 million invested in 2004 - 2005.
2006 Personnel Hire Division expanded with the recruitment of additional offshore technicians. Staff numbers increased to over 60.
The design department was upgraded with new Autodesk Inventor stations, including ANSYS Finite Element Analysis software. The company's office IT equipment and systems were upgraded.
The continuing ongoing investment in the hire division included the acquisition of eight 200 tonne winches.
2007 Company financial turnover to year end 31 October 2007 exceeded £8 million.
Staff numbers increased to 85 full time permanent staff with a strong growth in all sectors of marine oil activity including bespoke manufacturing and the offshore personnel division with engineers operating in all corners of the globe.
Hire fleet division had a further £2 million investment during calendar years 2006 and 2007.
To accommodate the increasing size of the hire fleet division, a hire fleet storage facility was established at Markethill Industrial Estate, Turriff.
An independent office complex at Banff was built to accomodate the ACE Hire Fleet division's management and administrative team.
A Board of Management was implemented with Mr Bob Smit installed as Chief Operations Officer.
An In-house company accountant was appointed.
2008 Further £2milllion investment into ACE Winches Hire Equipment Fleet.
Investment was made in both a 750Te test bed and also a wire rope and umbilical spooling facility at the Montbletton site, Banff.
Acquisition was made of a site at Auchterless. The site is to be redeveloped into a new operating facility and renamed as "Towie Barclay Works".
Full time staff numbers increased to 110.
The ACE Design and Projects office was extended to accomodate the growing team.
2009 ACE Winches achieved the ISO 9001:2008 international accreditation for its quality management system.
During the year ACE Winches was re-assessed and recognised for its continued success on maintaining Investors in People Status
Staff numbers reached 140.