The company is small, employing around 35, a number which has remained constant for 50 years. It is 100% family owned and run, as near as is possible, as a family. The average length of employment is around 14 years and has stayed at this level since the late 1950’s.

Essex Engineering has manufactured coin slide mechanisms for over 50 years. The coin slide has proved itself highly reliable and easily repairable, resulting in over 1 million finding their way onto coin slide operated machines throughout the world. Coin slides will work in the Namibian desert just as well as in a rain forest or an Eskimo's igloo. Coin slides are also, of course, totally free from any wiring problems allowing the device to operate anywhere - and use only the energy supplied (quite freely) by the customer!

Keep it simple and design it to take the Essex coin slide.

The reason for the continued success in the coin slide market is that the coin slide mechanisms are incredibly reliable, and purely mechanical.

QUALITY

From 1946 to 1956 the company made 150,000 small sewing machines each having around 35 components, again all presswork and machining done in house, and with practically complete customer satisfaction. From 1946 to present it has made hundreds of thousands of terminating tools and hundreds of millions of fixing clips and saddles with a rejection rate that is quite trivial. From 1959 to the present, the company has made and sold all over the world around 1.2 million coin slide mechanisms each having around 35 components, all presswork and machining done in house and with enviable customer satisfaction.

The factory has bespoke computer software for stock control and traceability, has roving inspections and a person in each department with 18 plus years experience of making the same things. It is not likely to establish the conventional quality methods employed by the large organization.