Alan Purvis

Managing Director, Mettler Toledo Safeline Ltd

Alan Purvis is the Managing Director of Mettler Toledo Safeline Ltd, which is a subsidiary of Mettler Toledo, a Swiss based Instrumentation business for the past eight years. It is a market leading instrumentation business supplying in line metal detectors to the food and pharmaceutical industry. The company employs 300 people in the UK. In 2015 the company sales and operations turnover was £100m. More than 95% of its UK produced detectors are exported.

MT Safeline works closely with the University of Manchester with 6 patents awarded in recent years to under pin innovation and maintain technology leadership. The company has a successful apprenticeship scheme, invests in employee skills development and supports STEM awareness through local schools. MT Safeline has lean manufacturing operation with good visual management techniques, clear KPIs and a culture of continuous improvement.

Alan began as a Graduate Apprentice and moved onto become the Production Engineer at Rolls Royce (Aero Engines) Ltd in Bristol before having various Technical and Operational roles for Oxford Instruments. He rose from Project Engineer to Engineering Manager (cryomagnetics) and then became Manufacturing Director of its instrumentation business. He had various Operational and Business management roles for Edwards Vacuum, a global leader in semicon pumping and a Division of BOC. Roles included General Manager of main UK manufacturing site, Operations and Technology Director of a plasma sputtering equipment company in California, Global Business Manager for semicon vacuum business and European Regional Director.