Numatic International
 |
|
| Private company | |
| Industry | Technology |
| Founded | 1969 |
| Founder | Chris Duncan |
| Headquarters | Chard, Somerset, England, United Kingdom |
|
Key people
|
Chris Duncan (Managing Director) Stuart Cochrane (Manufacturing manager) |
| Products | Vacuum cleaners and other cleaning equipments |
| Revenue |
 GB £124.4 million (2013) |
|
GB £10 million (2013) |
|
| Owner | Chris Duncan |
|
Number of employees
|
885 (2014) |
| Website | numatic.co.uk |
Numatic International Ltd. is a British manufacturer, primarily making domestic, commercial and industrial cleaning and maintenance equipment for distribution worldwide. It is one of the major producers of vacuum cleaners in the UK., and best known for its popular and iconic "Henry" domestic vacuum cleaner, and related models, which are canister designs having human names and 'smiling face' appearances.
The company was founded and as of 2015 is still solely owned, by Chris Duncan, who created the compact shape for "Henry" in 1968. It owns a manufacturing facility located in Chard, Somerset in south-west England, and wholly owned distributors in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and South Africa. The company employs over 885 people, and produces 4500 units per day, over 40% of which are for export.
One of Numatic's most popular products is a vacuum cleaner called Henry. It is easily distinguishable by the large smiling face on the front of the canister (there's a 3D clip-on face which has eyes and a mouth, and the vacuum's hose forms its nose). Although designing the shape, Duncan did not conceive the "Henry" character. This was designed by Michael Walsh FCSD a graphic designer who was asked to create coloring for the machine. In fact he went further. Michael could see that the top of the machine could be a black bowler hat while the base could be a character face. He created the eyes and mouth and used the hose as a nose for sucking. Then he needed a name. Thinking that "Hoover" is now a generic term for vacuum cleaners he decided to call it "Henry" as in "Henry the Hoover". A new parking bracket was added in September 2012. Since the introduction of Henry in 1981, over 7 million have been produced worldwide.
Since Henry's original release in 1980, a whole family of vacuum cleaners has been introduced in different sizes and colours and with different specifications and uses (including a wet and dry model and a multi-functional wet/dry and carpet shampoo cleaner). All the original series are based on British names. The current 2016 range are:
Henry, (HenryXtra & HenryMicro) Hetty, Harry, James, Charles, George and Henry and Hetty Spray Mop Jack (Tesco Exclusive)
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Wikipedia