Anglia Crown, which is a long-term customer for Lock Inspection and centres its business on catering to hospitals throughout the UK, produces ready meals in plastic trays at its facilities in Colchester, in the South of England, and Manchester in the North of England and is currently experiencing a surge in its business. After consultation with Anglia Crown's engineers, Lock prescribed two MET 30+ metal detector systems, bringing the total number of units installed across the two sites up to six.
In a high-risk food hygiene environment, equipment must be built from hard wearing materials to withstand the rigours of cleaning. Lock claims that the MET 30+ detectors and conveyor systems installed at Anglia Crown meet these requirements because they are ruggedly constructed from stainless steel and sealed to IP66 to allow full wash-down at the end of each shift.
With service a prime consideration, Anglia Crown took out a service contract with Lock to maximise uptime and safeguard against unplanned downtime. The contract entitles Anglia Crown to a discount on spare parts, callout charges and breakdown rates and includes provision for ongoing training and machine maintenance.
Lock, which has been supplying metal detection systems to the food and pharmaceutical industries for more than fifty years, also provides three annual check-up visits coupled with calibration certificates to prove that the equipment is operating at maximum specification. On-site training ensures personnel can operate machines and deal with basic problems.
Chris Hanson, Engineering Manager at Anglia Crown, said: "When we're buying machinery, we don't just consider price and quality. Service is every bit as important. Lost production time is crucially expensive to us, so we need to be sure that our suppliers have the back-up to meet the service standards that we expect."
He added that combined with Lock's servicing contract and training it means that machines are reliable and all personnel are knowledgeable about how to operate them.
Lock has made a number of new additions to its product line-up over the past year, including the X-treme metal detector, designed to be washdown resistant, and the slimline MET 30+ which was introduced in 2003 aimed at manufacturers with restricted space.
As well as serving the UK industry, Lock has a comprehensive sales network, with offices in France, the Netherlands, US and Australia, it also has a global network of distributors.
The company's Australian offices were opened up in August last year and will act as its Asia Pacific headquarters. The company has reported growing demand in the region in recent years, in particular from the burgeoning China market.