IT may have a shorter history than some North-East companies but the Forge House Group has packed more than most into its 36 years.

Based on the Cleveland Trading Estate in Darlington, the company has its roots in traditional engineering but has diversified in recent years into everything from road safety to furniture. It has also, like so many North-East businesses, endured trials and tribulations - coming perilously close to extinction in the 1990s.

The company has its roots in three businesses, which became incorporated in 1969 on a site in Victoria Road, all operating within the engineering, chemical and offshore sectors.

Chemstruc Teesside Ltd specialised in pipework design and associated projects, which remain at the core of much of what Forge House Group does today.

Tyne Tees Model Services Ltd operated in an area which was to underline more than any other the dramatic changes brought about by technology over the past four decades - and which almost brought the company down.

In 1969, industry relied on models in order to design its plants and Tyne Tees was an expert at producing them, and manufactured the UK's largest pipework design model ever, for the Sizewell B reactor, costing £6m.

There was also a third company, which specialised in hiring out workers for the chemical and engineering sectors.

In those days, North-East heavy industry, although already seeing signs of long-term decline, was still buoyant, with companies like Whessoe and Darlington and Simpson Rolling Mills, both in Darlington, in their heyday.

But times were changing and advances in technology and foreign competition were beginning to hit hard.

In 1979, Chemstruc, Tyne Tees and the hire company moved to the Cleveland Trading Estate, at Albert Hill, Darlington, on the site of the old Darlington Forge, which employed 1,000 people.

Forge House Group financial director Ron Harker said: "It had the largest steam hammer in the world - people said that when it was operating the whole town shook."

During its heyday, the forge, which closed in 1967, made steel castings for battleships and merchant vessels, gun barrels for warships, prop shafts for cargo vessels and other components.

When the three companies moved onto the site in 1979, the then owners renamed the business the Forge House Group. Part of the headquarters is the old forge canteen, complete with wartime bomb shelter.

Chemstruc became Forge House Engineering Ltd, Tyne Tees Models became Forge House Models Ltd and the hiring company became Forge House Personnel Ltd.

However, the move hit trouble, partly because of the decline in heavy industry during the 1980s and also because changing technology saw computer-aided design (CAD) systems sweep away the need for draughtsmen working with paper, ruler and pen.

Mr Harker, a Forge House draughtsman, said: "Suddenly, companies did not need models because they could see everything on a computer screen - and the problems which hit our modelling side affected the entire company.

"We went through really bad times in the early 1990s. Turnover was down from £4m a year to £500,000. Our marketplace had gone and it was touch and go whether we survived or not."

The owners were considering closure when a management buy-out team stepped in.

Dave Doughty, now managing director, directors Peter Tarn and Charlie Goddard, and Mr Harker, all with 25 years experience with the company, bought the business.

Mr Harker said: "Our choice was to close the business or make a go of it.

"We realised that, to survive, the business had to diversify away from just the engineering sector, although that remains the core of our work.

"Diversifying is what we have been doing ever since."

And how they have diversified. Over recent years, the company has produced everything from moulded machine lids and furniture to office screens and road safety equipment.

The safety equipment project came about when Middlesbrough road safety officer Dave Milford wanted a way of showing children the dangers of not wearing seatbelts.

The Forge House group built a small catapult to fire a car forwards so that Mr Milford could show school pupils that unstrapped passengers would be hurled forward and killed or injured.

Without advertising the project, Forge House has sold 80 of the kits at £1,000 each to road safety organisations across the UK.

Mr Harker said: "Children being hurt or killed because they were not wearing seatbelts is a major problem in the North-East and we have helped Dave get the message over.

"It has proved a great success and tens of thousands of children have seen it. It has saved lives."

Another project saw the company win a tender from the Royal Navy in 1990 to make a wind tunnel for recalibrating equipment used to aim missiles, which had been found wanting in high winds during the Falklands War.

The company has constantly developed, investing heavily over the past six years in CAD and 3D systems, and hiring out skilled engineering workers.

Forge House Group employs 42 people, and clients include North-East companies Corus, British Energy, VAI and Whessoe.

Two years ago, the three companies merged so that Forge House is now one entity.

Mr Harker said: "We have to keep developing. The diversity of work we do is immense and we feel we have to be constantly changing to ensure we survive.

"Companies which plod on are storing up problems but we are constantly changing.

"We are only as good as our staff and our ethos is that everyone is involved.

"We devise solutions for clients and, when they bring the problem, everyone is encouraged to get involved in solving it.

"I think that makes for a healthy company. Our turnover has nearly trebled over the past six years and is currently at £1.5m."