Minebea Intec, which offers a range of weighing technology for the brewing industry, is marking ten years since relocating to its UK head office in Birmingham.
Over the last decade, the manufacturer of industrial weighing and inspection technologies has delivered innovative solutions for customers operating across a range of sectors, bringing performance, safety, and efficiency gains to production processes throughout the country.
Peter Walker, country manager UK & Ireland, explains the evolution of the business over the past decade, reflects on milestone moments, and ponders on what could lie in store for the next ten years.
“We moved to Birmingham when the industrial weighing division of Sartorius was sold to MinebeaMitsumi and, as a result, we needed to move. As we had the choice to go anywhere, we did a lot of research and found that this location would be excellent for both our customers and our colleagues in Ireland due the cost and frequency of flights between Dublin and Birmingham. We only occupied the ground floor initially”, he explained.
Walker continued: “The early years were quite new for us. We came away from an office of roughly 200 people and into one that had only 20, comprising of the industrial weighing team. We also had to incorporate quite a few new team members at the time too.”
During the last 10 years, customer expectations have also changed; Walker says: “They’re looking for more of a partnership now rather than just a piece of equipment. Customers today require a lot more supporting evidence to go with machines – things like sustainability documentation and credentials about our business and our accreditations. I think they really want to know that we’re going to be there for the long haul to support them”.
Another change that’s occurred since the move to Birmingham is the requests for connectivity of machinery. The company’s new Blue HMI has completely revolutionised the user experience offering more consistency, connectivity and security than ever before. Staff can move between machinery seamlessly, they can control passwords and access to equipment and see an audit trail of who’s used it.
He explained: “We are expanding this across our entire product range. Because we’ve got a wide portfolio – everything from checkweighing through to weighing vessels outside the factory and scales in the warehouse – we will eventually have the same interface across all those pieces of equipment.
“That will make staff training a lot easier. If you have somebody leaving production, someone from pre-production or the warehouse will know how to operate that machinery because it’s a common interface.”
In 2025 Minebea Intec launched the MiNexxseries of scales comprising three weight indicators and weighing platforms. The devices are designed for precise weight measurement in manual to automated processes and, thanks to their versatile combination options, are suitable for almost any industrial environment and weighing challenge.
