Award recognition

Castell has redesigned its manufacturing process to increase flexibility and reduce delivery times.

As a result, the company has received the Manufacturing Excellence award for 2012 from its parent company Halma, beating off competition from 40 other Halma subsidiaries. Halma said: "Castell has transformed its manufacturing capability through a combination of product design innovation, excellent application of lean manufacturing and an ambition for international expansion." Halma adds that traditionally, trapped key interlocking systems could only be produced on receipt of the key coding details, creating long delivery times while the system was confirmed. Castell's end-coding system was introduced three years ago, enabling products to be coded at the end of the manufacturing process.

Now, orders that took weeks to build and ship can be despatched in days.