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Into its fourth decade

Saflec has been involved in the design and manufacture of metal detectors since its inception in 1980. In this time Saflec has produced a variety of metal detectors for industry, security, mining and many other applications.

Over the years Saflec has produced a range of metal detectors each with a specific task in mind to suit a particular industry.

Bill Young, Saflec CEO

Industrial

There are very few mines on the African continent which do not have a Saflec industrial metal detector scanning their product for unwanted metals, protecting expensive crushers and processing equipment. This popularity of the Saflec Metasearch industrial metal detector has been driven by its reliability and cost effectiveness.

Security

Saflec is involved in the security market and produces a variety of walk-through metal detectors. Due to the unrest experienced in South Africa during the 1980s and early 1990s, Saflec developed the first South African produced walk-through detector that could not only reliably detect guns and knives, but could also detect the magnetic field emanating from limpet mines – a world first. Saflec detectors were installed in airports, shopping centres, restaurants, train stations and many other places around South Africa.

That dangerous era has thankfully passed, but unfortunately, due to the crime reality in South Africa, walk-through detectors are still very necessary and as a result you will find Saflec metal detectors protecting premises all over the country!

Loss control

Today, a large proportion of metal detectors are employed in loss control situations to protect the client’s property from theft. Saflec has designed both walk-through and handheld metal detectors which can be used for loss-control or entrance security. Theft of valuable materials like gold, platinum, or tungsten carbide results in losses in the order of millions per year, so for situations like that, Saflec has produced the well-known Goldfinger metal detector, able to analyse the metallic profile of a person and therefore find extremely small quantities of valuable materials on the person’s body.

Multi-zone

A European manufacturer designed the first multi-zone metal detector in an effort to speed up the traffic through airports and minimise delay. The theory behind this multi-zone metal detector was that it would indicate on which area on the body metal was located, which would mean a time saving as the security personnel would be able to search only the area where the metal was located.

In practice the security personnel still tend to manually search the complete body once metal has been detected, however multi-zone detectors are an extremely popular form of walk-through detector, despite being significantly more expensive than single zone detectors.

Saflec engaged in a long and extensive research and development cycle to design a detector that would fit the South African market, yet still be cost-effective against the international imported detectors.

After trying out many different metal detection theories and methodologies, the resulting Panaché multi-zone detector is one of Saflec’s finest products, able to display accurately where on the body the metal is detected in both a picture form and also using LED lights down the edges of the unit.

Aesthetics

Saflec’s philosophy has always been that its products must not only be cost-effective, robust and reliable, but should also look good. A large amount of effort is expended in ensuring that the units have an aesthetic appeal so as to fit in with the style and colour of its surroundings and be as unobtrusive as possible.

Proudly South African

The units are proudly manufactured, supported and maintained entirely in South Africa. This means that Saflec can provide instant cost-effective support and the ability to custom-make units for specific installations.

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