Laboratory news Q&A: Sterilin

With over 40 years of laboratory product experience, Sterilin have been there, seen it and got the t-shirt. Here we hear tales of mergers and dissolutions with CEO John Adkins 

Q. When and why was Sterilin formed?
A. Sterilin was established over 40 years ago and latterly formed part of the Barloworld Scientific organisation. In November 2007 Barloworld Scientific, home to some of the world’s most famous brand names in laboratory equipment and consumables, was acquired by Nova Capital. Following a review of the organisation the new owners decided to create four new companies, each of which has its own strategic direction, dedicated sales, marketing, operational and functional teams and investment to drive growth. Sterilin Limited is one of the newly formed organisations and has expertise in the manufacture of single use laboratory plastics. This is a very exciting time for the company which, with renewed focus on manufacturing and new product development, will grow from strength to strength.

Q. Why is it no longer part of BWS?
A. The Barloworld organisation made a strategic decision to exit manufacturing and focus on product distribution which resulted in the company selling several of its key manufacturing operations.

Q. What is the rationale behind creating four individual entities?
A. The reasoning was to generate focus within each of the business units. Within Barloworld Scientific there were four separate businesses trying to operate as one - this meant that at any one time there was only ever focus within one of the businesses leading to a lack of focus and investment in the other three.

Q. What products fall under the new Sterilin brand?
A. Sterilin Limited comprises four established brands: Sterilin Single Use Plastics, Iwaki Tissue Culture Products, Sterilin Packaging Products and Sterilin Silicone Devices.

Q. Which of your product lines do you consider to be “industry leading” and why?
A. Sterilin considers the 90mm Petri dish to be an ‘industry leading’ product. Sterilin manufacture the 90mm Petri dish to standard BS611: partII. This standard is not mandatory but conformance helps ensure consistency of product for the end user, which is essential if the product is to be used in automation. The standard covers issues such as sterility, dimensional conformance, distortion criteria and particulate matter.

Q. What are the main application areas for your products?
A. The Sterilin product range was established over 40 years ago in the clinical sector to address the needs of the microbiologist. Although this still forms a major part of the business, in recent years the range has evolved with user needs to address much wider market sectors including food, industrial, pharmaceutical and forensics. We continue to explore new opportunities in the life sciences area including those offered by the increasing use of automation.

Q. What sets you apart from other providers/manufacturers in the industry?
A. Our drive for quality and depth of expertise in plastics manufacture and desire to service the customer.

Q How does Sterilin describe itself?
A. As a leading UK manufacturer of single use laboratory products for the Life Science and Healthcare markets. Our vision is “to be the UK life science market leader for single use laboratory products used in sample collection, preservation and processing.”

Q. Is the manufacturing facility still in South Wales?
A. Yes the manufacturing remains in South Wales. The site was established 40 years ago and covers an area of over 84,000 square feet. We are proud to be a UK manufacturer and do not foresee any change to this position in the future. There are real service advantages to UK customers in having a local manufacturing facility. And environmental ones too; overseas suppliers generate a considerable carbon footprint by shipping products into the UK.

Q. Do you manufacture all your products or do you work with partners?
A. We manufacture all the key Sterilin product ranges including containers, petri dishes, pipettes, tubes and multiwells. However, we do factor products lines that we feel complement the Sterilin range including the Sterilin swab range manufactured by Copan Italia and the Iwaki Tissue Culture ware from Asahi Glass Corporation in Japan.

Q. Do you have a significant OEM business?
A. We work with many OEM partners and manufacture several bespoke items for dedicated customers.

Q. Will the new management team make any investment in the manufacturing site?
A. The current management team are very committed to new product
development as they see this as key to driving the business forward, as well as driving improvements in manufacturing -  both of which involve investment in the facility. If an investment can be justified then it is being made.

Q Why is there going to be renewed focus in manufacturing?
A. The Sterilin branded product ranges are quality based, however this is a quality that we believe can be bettered. And we have to manufacture at an economic cost. We want to improve on the quality that we already supply to the marketplace and we know that there are certain manufacturing processes that can be improved to enable us to remain competitive.

Q. What new products are on the horizon?
A. Several products are under development that address areas within the clinical sector. A new product development plan is under preparation for the Sterilin business ensuring a steady stream of further product launches over the forthcoming years. We are also looking for any factored items that we feel would fit into the company’s vision and benefit from the Sterilin branding.

Q. How is the company coping with rising raw material and energy costs?
A. Increasing raw material and energy costs are certainly an issue to us as no doubt they are for many manufacturers. However, in order to try and limit the impact on our customers, we are continually reviewing our manufacturing processes, packaging materials etc.  To counteract such issues many manufacturers have resorted to overseas production - however we do not see this as an option.

Q. Does the company have any green policies?
A. We are an ethical organisation that is committed to addressing our green credentials and have a team within the organisation whose objective is to address environmental issues such as power usage, packaging, recyclable materials, landfill waste etc. As a manufacturer and major supplier within the UK market, we feel that our manufacturing facility in Wales certainly helps to limit our carbon footprint.