Fortress Interlocks celebrates Queens Award for its overseas success

Fortress Interlocks, based off the Birmingham New Road in Wolverhampton, designs and makes specialised safety locks for use on manufacturing equipment, including car production lines, and has seen its sales soar by more than 50 per cent over the last three years.

As a result it has received a Queen's Award for Enterprise, for international trade, presented to the workforce by the Lord Lieutenant of the West Midlands, John Crabtree.

He hailed the company's success as "really brilliant", telling staff that in addition to the business benefits of winning a Queen's Award: "It really irritates your competition."

Fortress Interlocks' third Queens Award since 2007 came after its overseas sales leapt from £11.7m to £18.2m in three years as overseas sales grew to 80 per cent of its business thanks to growth in Europe, the Americas and the Asia Pacific region.

Rob Johnson, the company's technical director, said: "Our products make sure people get to go home from work in the same state they arrived, and we are all really proud of that."

Although Fortress still makes complex mechanical safety locks, it has developed electronic locks and now hi-tech systems connected by computer networks. They ensure production equipment will not operate while unlocked, preventing accidents. Among its major successes in recent years has been winning a £1.5 million order for locking systems on BMW factory production lines in Germany.

Managing director Jo Smith, who joined the firm two-a-half years ago after a decade with US-owned aerospace giant UTC, said: "It was the family feeling of the company that attracted me, and I've worked hard to maintain that.

"It's part of what makes us so successful. People are proud to work here, proud of what we do, and they are prepared to work extra hours and switch shifts if necessary because of that. Everyone here really cares; they are just the best team.

"And that helps us recruit the best talent. Most of us are from the Black Country – I was born in Stourbridge and live in Wombourne – but we also attract young engineers from Cambridge and Oxford."

Fortress Interlocks, part of the FTSE-100 Halma group, employs 100 people at its Wolverhampton base – around 70 of them on the shop floor – with another 70 at its sites in the USA, Europe and in the Asian Pacific region.

Jo added: "We're just a small company in Wolverhampton, but our products are used and sold around the world."

Fortress Interlocks started out as part of the Black Country's Lowe & Fletcher business – which has its roots in Willenhall's Victorian locks industry – after the Central Electricity Generating Board asked it to develop a range of interlocks to control the operation of switchgear.

It was spun out as an independent business in the wake of the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act, which led to huge demand for safety systems on engineering and manufacturing equipment. It was bought by Halma in 1987 and in 2008 moved from its old base in Bilston to its purpose-built new global headquarters in Inverclyde Drive.