MANUFACTURING business the Fin Machine Company has increased its workforce after winning millions of pounds worth of orders in the past six months.

The firm, based on the Salters Lane Industrial Estate in Sedgefield, County Durham, has increased its staffing levels by 50 to 240, after securing a £3.5m order from German company Behr's plant in the US.

Behr has factories worldwide, manufacturing heat exchangers for firms such as BMW, Volkswagen and Mercedes. That recent success has been reinforced by the signing of a global contract with French group Valeo, the largest supplier of car radiators to the automotive sector.

The three-year contract, worth more than £10m over three years, will cover operations in the US, South America, Europe, China and Japan.

The past six months has also seen Fin break into the notoriously difficult market of China, and win orders in the US totalling £1.6m.

Fin Machine produces the machinery and tools for its customers to manufacture heat exchangers for cars, trucks and buses as well as radiators, evaporators and condensers for air conditioning, and air coolers for diesel vehicles.

As a result of its continued success, Fin has had to supplement its existing 34,000sq ft factory in Sedgefield, with an additional 73,000sq ft of manufacturing and storage space on the Seaham Grange Industrial Estate. The unit will be used for additional fabrication and precision engineering, as well as central distribution.

Despite the new premises being twice the size of its existing site, the company denied that it had any plans to move out of Sedgefield.