Le Maitre Investment in Production Process Results in Great Product Performance

In 2013 Le Maitre invested in increasing productivity at its pyrotechnics factory in Peterborough UK, in order to cope with demand. The pyrotechnic manufacturing process is a very labour intensive process and Le Maitre had reached almost full production capacity the year before, the company says. They therefore researched alternative methods, exploring different industries before subsequently identifying a completely new production process which can output 24,000 - 26,000 units per hour, regardless of diameter.

Moving from the previous moulded stars method to the new format has been far from straightforward. The production process greatly affects how the pyro behaves and the Peterborough team have had to spend a huge amount of time and resource in the careful adjustment of product composition. Le Maitre announces that the production transition has now been completed for all Mines, from Micro Mines through to 30' Mines as well as Starbursts. Although the primary purpose was to greatly increase productivity, which is now being achieved, the team also took the opportunity to incorporate a number of further performance benefits. These include, the company says:

• Products are much cleaner, with fallout reduced by 1/3 (for magnesium based compositions)
• Products are much more consistent across the range with colors in the same family travelling at similar rates
• Blue and purple mines have been brought inline to look and behave in the same way as other colors, so they are now much brighter and tighter.
• The new production process greatly improves consistency between batches and individual products meaning the customer will receive the same quality product every time.
• Many of the magnesium compositions have been re formulated and are now low perchlorate compositions thus reducing their environmental impact. The Silver, White and Pink are completely perchlorate free! (Users would need to dissolve over 9,000 30' mines in to an Olympic size swimming pool to put Le Maitre's products over the tightest current (2013) US perchlorate regulation.

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