Montford Instruments Ltd

Founded in 1963 as a family business, Montford Instruments is an established engineering company manufacturing test chambers and temperature generating equipment. The company operates from its own modern, purpose built 11,000 sq. ft. factory in North West London.

Montford offers a wide range of services and products. Some of which include an environment friendly and cost effective CFC free refrigeration system and a SAFE heating system to heat flammable atmospheres. It’s plain to see that innovation has always been a key element of Montford’s development. This is especially true when one considers the company’s ground breaking products like vapour metering refrigeration systems and the first commercially available Liquid Nitrogen cooled chamber. The company’s customer base is made up almost entirely of blue chip companies that cover a wide range of industries such as Aerospace, Automotive, Communications, Defence and Electronics.

Since the company operates in a very dynamic and competitive market, its position is directly affected by the performance of the manufacturing sector. Over time, technological advances, cheaper options and the presence of large players were beginning to dilute Montford’s technological edge. This brought the need to refresh the company’s competitive strategy- either through new products, new markets or a combination of these two approaches. It was for this reason that the Enterprise Bureau (EB) business project was formulated.

The project was designed to evaluate one of the ideas for devising a diversification strategy at Montford which could potentially help the company supply to the medical sector. The project involved developing a prototype with a university student for a system to prevent patients’ temperatures from dropping to dangerous levels during their operation. This is crucial since research has found that a drop of 2 degrees Celsius from the normal body temperature during surgery increases the chances of post-operative problems such as infections.

Finding a solution in this field could open up tremendous opportunities for Montford Instruments Ltd in the health sector. On reflection Gabor Martell, the Managing Director of Montford said, “We depend on the continuous development of ideas for ground-breaking products to retain our position in what is an extremely competitive sector. The Enterprise Bureau project was concerned with developing one such idea; finding a solution to a critical medical problem.”

Throughout the project the level of communication during the placement between the company, student and academic was good, but the EB project could not be completed within the allocated timeframe. Despite this drawback Martell felt that, “the experience has made us more aware of what is required to successfully steer future collaborative projects with a university.”