SUPPORT SERVICES
Exwold Support Services
In addition to our dedicated manufacturing facilities, we also offer our clients a range of first class support services, extending across laboratories, quality assurance, distribution, warehousing and packaging.
At its core Exwold is a service company
We operate our own well equipped laboratories, staffed by fully trained analysts to ensure that we have efficient, high quality manufacturing processes and end products.
Our extensive in-house experience and systems cover all aspects of quality assurance, security of supply, technical competence and monitoring.
We offer a comprehensive packaging service for your products as well as dedicated facilities covering storage and transport of your chemicals at all stages from receipt to dispatch.
All of our sites are ISO 9001/14001 certified.
Well equipped laboratories
Fully trained analysts
Efficient, high quality manufacturing processes
Extensive in-house experience and systems
Comprehensive packaging service
ISO 9001, ISO 14001 & ISO 45001 certified
Quality Assurance
As a contract manufacturer, Exwold is proud to provide our clients with the reassurance and confidence that we operate to the highest quality standards. Excellent manufacturing and quality control practices are the bedrock of our business and we understand our customers simply cannot afford quality to be compromised by outsourcing processing.
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Exwold’s manufacturing sites are ISO9001 certified and our quality systems are closely monitored and improved through:
- Annual audit by SGS
- Regular internal audits by our trained audit team
- Quality assurance reviews
- Regular customer audits
Exwold has a full time compliance manager who reports to the commercial director and is independent of our manufacturing department.
Cross Contamination/ ACL Limits
Through strict adherence to product specific clean down procedures and on-going training, we aim to achieve the highest levels of cross contamination prevention possible and regularly achieve ACL below 50ppm. We also offer a service of product integrity tests by third party laboratories if required.
Sustainability
We have been members of Ecovadis since 2018 and have achieved Gold Status.
Process Changes
Operating our customers’ processes, we understand the need for close co-operation with our clients and frequently discuss potential process improvements and changes with the customers which are managed through our change control procedures.
Packaging
As well as processing your products, we can pack them for you as well.
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We are able to pack into containers of your choice, including bulk (FIBCs) or ‘big bags’, tote bins, drums, kegs, plastic containers or pails. We are also able to pack products into valve sacks, laminate bags, foil lined bags, multi-ply paper bags and plastic sacks. Our own UN approved bag-in-box is available for 1kg, 3.75kg and 5kg weights if required. Our packing options range from 1kg to 1000kg.
We are able to offer 2-D Matrix labelling in compliance with crop market track and trace requirements.
Health, Safety and Environment
As a contract manufacturer, Exwold are proud to provide our clients with the reassurance and confidence that we operate to the highest safety and environmental standards.
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Exwold’s Brenda Road site operates under Upper Tier Control of Major Accident Hazards (COMAH), while the Haverton Hill site is Lower Tier COMAH and also operates under the Environmental Permitting Regulations (EPR).
Exwold’s manufacturing sites are ISO14001 certified and our environmental management system is closely monitored and improved through:
- Annual audit by SGS
- Regular internal audits by our trained audit team
- Regular customer audits
In 2019, the company also obtained ISO 45001 certification covering occupational health and safety.
Exwold is a member of:
- British Safety Council (BSC)
- Industry Nature Conservation Association (INCA)
- Seal Sands SHE club. In an area of a large number of chemical processing companies Exwold is able to draw on this extensive knowledge by sharing ideas, information, news and updates.
All sites operate in accordance with waste regulations.
Exwold hold SHE Meetings every 2 months with representation from the factory floor.
Sourcing & Purchasing
Exwold’s purchasing and supply chain team offer expert assistance to support the contract manufacture of your product.
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We offer our clients:
- Management of customer sourced incoming materials
- Sourcing of chemical raw materials
- Sourcing of packaging
- Sourcing of EU/ REACH registered alternative raw materials
Customer Sourced Materials
We are highly experienced at co-ordinating incoming raw materials and active ingredients with our clients and their suppliers. Often, having direct contact with suppliers, stocks are controlled within our ERP system. We can provide paperwork, sample retention and analysis to reduce our customers’ workloads and provide confidence in our processing, treating your products as we would our own.
Exwold Sourced Materials: Exwold has a proven track record in sourcing chemical raw materials and packaging for our customers. This particularly works well where there are synergies with existing Exwold sourced products and, if viable, we are proud to source locally so as to potentially reduce your product’s carbon footprint.
Providing Cost Savings
Exwold encourages a transparent approach to material procurement and we work closely with our customers to determine the most cost-effective solutions. Our commercial team strongly believes that providing savings on materials ensures both our customer and Exwold’s long-term competitiveness in the global market.
Our qualified staff understand strict regulatory requirements and, within these frameworks, we often look to support our customer’s product development by finding alternative sources of materials. This provides REACH compliant sources and potential cost savings without compromising quality.
“Whether managing customer sourced materials or sourcing and purchasing on behalf of our customers, our aim is to become an extension of their own organisation for the duration of a contract and beyond. Through a transparent approach, we aim to build a long-term relationship with our customers and add value to their businesses”. Mike Druce, Sales & Purchasing Manager.
Warehouse and Logistics
With over 10,000mt of solid products passing through Exwold every year, Exwold’s warehouse and logistics team can offer expert advice and assistance to support the contract manufacture of your product.
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At Exwold, we can offer our clients:
- Warehousing and storage
- Co-ordination of transport and incoming and outgoing materials
- ADR trained staff
- Excellent stock control of products using Navision
Warehouse
When contract manufacturing for our customers, we are able to offer over 2000 pallet storage spaces for chemicals and packaging. Storage is free while we are processing your product and a fee can be agreed if you need a longer-term storage option.
With top tier COMAH (Control Of Major Accidents and Hazards) in place at our Brenda Road site, we are able to safely and confidently handle your hazardous products.
Logistics
We have invested in in-house expertise and Exwold’s operations manager is DGSA trained. This enables us to provide advice on packaging and transport when our customers need it.
We are able to deal directly with your haulier, thus enabling you to concentrate on other parts of your business. We are also able to organise transport on your behalf using our approved transport companies. We are able to handle deep sea container loading and off-loading as well as discharge of road vehicles.
Development and Pilot Facilities
Ahead of commercial manufacture on the Exwold plant, Exwold has a purpose built technical development centre which offers familiarisation and scale-up capabilities when taking your product from laboratory bench to full scale plant manufacture.
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The facility and skilled development team works from laboratory scale of 100g to pilot runs of 100kgs.
Pilot runs are perfect for:
- Field trials of new crop protection formulations
- Application testing of performance product and providing small volumes for initial customer trials and pack testing.
- The pilot facility also provides our customers with confidence in the commercial scale-up of their processes and provides valuable process learning.
- Training of operators
- Exwold successfully trial in excess of 30 projects per year under the management of Chris Beevers, technical manager.
This new facility enhances existing capabilities further and the large scale technologies we can replicate include:
- Compaction
- Blending
- Milling
- Extrusion
- Kibbling
Exwold also carries out implementation and validation of analytical methods. The technical team has years of experience in crop protection and speciality chemical development.
Peter Webb, former head of technical support and shareholder says, “Exwold has always understood the importance of product development for our customers and this will greatly improve our ability and flexibility in delivering their development requirements. During development we work very closely with our clients who bring projects to us in a wide range of development stages: from conceptual to scale up.”
Quality Control
To support the contract manufacture of your product, Exwold Quality Control (QC) can provide qualitative and quantitative analysis of all types of products to the highest standard under ISO9001 certification.
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We have 3 QC Laboratories and a TDC (Technology Development Centre) based across 4 sites that aim to:
- Ensure your product fully meets specification, providing certificates of analysis.
- Monitor and maintain quality both of the final product and in process.
- Support continuous improvement
- Develop our QC testing ability with new methods of analysis.
- To provide timely, reliable and complete analytical services.
- Problem solving
- Specific product quality auditing
We have a large and diverse range of specialised scientific equipment in our laboratories in order to carry out a wide array of analyses and tests.
Our experience covers techniques regularly working to CIPAC agrochemical procedures, including;
| High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) | Gas Chromatography (GC) |
| Cross Contamination Analysis | pH Measurements |
| LOD Analysis (Karl Fischer & infra red balance) | Density |
| Viscosity Measurements (Brookfield) | Surface Tension |
| Hardness | Suspensibility & Dispersibility |
| Particle Size Analysis (Malvern) | Large range of sieves & Air Jet Sieving analysis |
As a third party manufacturer, we have a wide knowledge of analytical techniques for analysing products in specific industries. These include: powders, agrochemicals, catalysts, biocides, animal feed additives and plastics.
We are involved in analyses at all levels:
- From the macro, which covers areas such as physical analysis and quality control
- To the micro, such as the determination of active concentrations in products and any trace amounts of contamination in air, water, samples to ensure we are compliant and meet Exwold’s high environmental standards.
If a specific technique is not already within our portfolio, working closely with our customers, we also specialise in developing and validating methods of analysis. Our experienced team of analysists regularly work with industry specific tests and bespoke methods designed to measure the performance of a specific product. We regularly assist our customers when defining their specification and optimum batch size.