12 August 2014
When you deal with machines that can crush, compact and compress with thousands of pounds of force, one principal is tantamount above all others...
...SAFETY. Whilst being a Co2 neutral, leading provider of waste management solutions one would expect rigorous attention to mechanical safety, what sets Mil-tek apart is the attention to detail of all parts of the waste management process.
It is a testament to the fact that through 40,000 machines and in over 22 years of business, there has never been a liability case. “We recently shipped machine number 40,000. That was a good day. But if these products were unsafe or putting our customers at risk, I wouldn’t be comfortable getting up in the morning. The diversity of use in terms of employees and the wide range of industry means our machines have to be easy to use, and above all safe.”
The safety concept is integral to all elements of product and development, and has extended into by-products such as lift trollies (which actually do the lifting for you) and Mil-tek’s own-brand banding.
“The banding is key. If you’re making a bale of loose plastic or cardboard weighing over 100 kilos and the banding snaps, then you have to start over. In the early days of Mil-tek we outsourced this, but we really were never fully happy with what was available on the market. So we applied the same logic as we have to our balers and compactors by taking it in-house and creating our own.”
The quality tells: Mil-tek’s own-brand banding is ferociously strong, a single strap capable of lifting 530 kgs – equivalent of more than a polar bear. And the production moves at breath-taking speed.
“We had to move banding production to another wing of our facility,” Kristian explains. “It’s a fantastic development because we can now run three machines, each creating 100 metres of banding per minute. That’s 18km an hour, 144km a day and 720km a week. We worked it out, and about every 18 months, we create enough banding to wrap around the earth.”
The banding is created by wrapping and gluing 9, 15 or 22 individual strands of yarn. The strands are tightly pressed, stretched and wrapped around a spool. And to ensure consistency and quality, the banding is sampled and quality tested on every line, 3 times a day. “We have about 100 kilos of test strips dating back over the last 2 years. If a customer ever experiences an issue with their banding, we can trace it back and know exactly what batch it belongs to and when it was made.”
It is this commitment to safety and quality that ensures Mil-tek are the leading and innovative leader in the field of baling, compacting and banding.
Mil-tek Original Brand Baling Twine
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