About
LFA Machines was started in 2009, initially focusing on small tablet presses. We took time to identify who our customers would be and how we could best serve them. As we learned about the market and the struggles our customers were facing, we decided that:
LFA Machines’ mission is to become synonymous with the tableting and encapsulation of supplements and confectionery.
While our tablet presses can be used in other industries such as compound pharmacies, chemical manufacturing and pharmaceuticals, we discovered that it was simply impossible for us to be experts in all of them. We have found that by honing our expertise in vitamins, minerals and herbal extracts, we are better able to support our customers who need us the most.
How is LFA Machines fulfilling its mission?
LFA Machines has developed two distinct websites to make it simpler for our customers to find the answers they need. LFA Tablet Presses and LFA Capsule Fillers have been deliberately kept separate and easy to navigate, so that rather than being faced with a plethora of irrelevant information, everything you want to know under these two broad headings is to be found in one specific location.
As we built these websites, we also developed our team. And as our team grew, we evolved a set of values to which we now all commit.
LFA Machines values are to Grow, Learn and Better Ourselves through being Supportive.
We have taken these values and applied them to our mission. In doing so we believe that we have become the industry leader in supporting supplement and confectionery manufacturing companies. Here is how each one of our values affects you as one of LFA Machines’ customers:
Grow
At LFA Machines we know that the best way to grow our business is to help you grow yours. It is our belief that if we can help our customers grow consistently, then they would reward us with repeat business. With this in mind, we asked our customers what the one challenge was that they were facing that stood in the way of their growth. We received a host of answers, but the general theme was summed up perfectly by one customer:
There is no-one out there to support me from the start to the finish of my project. I buy my machinery from one company, my tooling from another and my excipients from a third. None of them seem to understand how one affects the other. What I really want is an out of the box solution. The right machine with the right tooling in it and a formulation that is going to work. - S Watson, USA
To address this problem and help our customers grow, LFA Machines grew in the following ways:
Product Range - LFA Machines started by only offering a small range of machinery. Over time we have grown the product range to include related tooling and excipients, in doing so becoming the only company in the world to offer a single place to get everything you need for supplement and confectionery manufacturing.
Team - We have grown our team from the initial two founders in 2009 to 32 members as of October 2020. Every time we bring on a team member, we add skills and knowledge that you are able to access. This includes;
- Technical writers - for better documentation and manuals to support you,
- R&D Engineers - to improve our machinery,
- Food Safety Team - to ensure you get only the highest quality safest excipients,
- Formulation Specialists - to help you overcome any hurdles you are facing in your product development.
Locations - We have also grown the number of locations we are operating in. LFA Machines currently owns offices in the USA, UK and Taiwan. We know that for our customers to grow they need the best quality support as close to them as possible, which is why on top of our three main locations we have also started to build a network of expert distributors. Each distributor is held to LFA Machines’ high standards and is thoroughly assessed before joining our team. To see a full list of our distributors or for more information on how to apply to become one, please visit our contact page.
Despite all of the ways we have grown our business to help you grow yours, we are careful not to outgrow our capabilities. We make sure we stay focused on what we are good at, and this is why we have specialised in tableting and the encapsulation of supplements and confectionery. We believe it is better to be expert at a few things rather than OK at a lot of things. We are often asked if we can help make soft gel capsules or supply packaging machinery. The answer unfortunately is ‘no’, but we do have some companies that we like to work with and are happy to recommend. If this is something you are interested in, please do get in contact with our team and we shall be happy to help.
If you have any questions or would just like to talk to someone about how LFA Machines can help grow your business or research department get in contact.
Learn
Looking back to when LFA Machines was first established in 2009, we now know how very little we knew then about the industry we were looking to support. Over the years we have learned and built up our experience and expertise in the sector. All of this learning has done two things for us that allow us to better serve you, our customer:
We Understand The Challenges You Are Facing
There was a time when LFA made its first tablet! We know how hard it is to formulate supplement and confectionery recipes. When we first set out, there were almost no resources available to help businesses learn these skills. As we have compiled our knowledge, we have decided not to keep it a secret, but to share it openly .
Videos - We have a full-time internal content creation team that creates “How To” videos for you. These videos cover everything from how to operate and use our machinery, to how bonds are formed in tablets, to how to check if your powder will flow through your machinery.
Articles - We have published over 100 articles to help you understand the more technical aspects of tableting and supplement encapsulation. These cover everything we have learned to date.
Documentation - We know that when you are first learning to use a new piece of machinery, it can be hard. That is why our inhouse team are constantly working on our documentation to make sure it is as thorough and easy-to-use as possible. This is all made available on our site for you to read before you make the decision to work with us.
Website Tools - We have developed a number of tools to make all aspects of tableting and encapsulation easier. These include flowability calculators, mix calculators and ways for you to record the quality of your finished products.
We Keep Learning
Despite how far we have come, we know that there is always more to learn. We are relentless learners. As we push our knowledge and deepen our expertise, we are going to bring those benefits to you. We will continue to improve our resources and the machines we sell.
We are able to take this passion for learning and apply it to the challenges that our customers are facing. One of the areas that is most relevant for many of our customers is in regulatory oversight. Over the years, we have implemented a number of GMP standards as well as ISO 9001, ISO 22000, HACCP and The Orange Guide to help our customers understand how our products integrate with their systems.
If you have a problem that you think we can help with, then please do get in contact. We would love to learn more about it and see if we can help out.
Better Ourselves
At LFA Machines we know that if your business does well, then ours does too. Traditional machine sellers sell you a machine, and then it is up to you to manufacture tablets. By deciding to sell excipients and empty capsules as well, we are not only invested in getting you set up, but in making sure your machine runs smoothly. If your machine is running, you are making money, and we are too by being able to supply you with the ingredients you need. Our success is built directly on yours. To make sure that we are able to give you the best chance at success, we are constantly working to better ourselves. Here are some of the ways we do that:
Team - We feel that our team should be an extension of yours. Each one of our team members has made a commitment to constantly better themselves. This is supported by investment by LFA Machines.
We have hundreds of hours of internal training videos so that each one of our team members is able to access all of our cumulative knowledge. We also heavily invest in sending our team members on training courses. By doing this, each one of our team is becoming a stronger resource for you to be able to rely on.
Machines - We are constantly working to better the machinery we sell. As we face different challenges from our customers' products, we get unique insights into how to improve our machinery. Our Formulations Team in the USA works with our R&D Engineering Team in Taiwan to give feedback on how formulations actually perform in our machinery. This gives us unique insight that most machinery manufacturers do not have. It allows us to make the improvements necessary to support our constantly innovative customers.
Excipients - Making a tablet, capsule or powder blend is a delicate dance between the machine, the tooling and most importantly the formulation. Our team at LFA Machines ensures that we are constantly bettering the excipients and capsules that we are bringing you. We work closely with our suppliers to make sure that the products we offer are not only safe, but work uniquely well with our machines.
Ultimately the best way that we are able to better ourselves is by helping our customers take on the interesting challenges of bringing their products to market. If you are facing a challenge that happens to be one we have not seen before, all the better! We love a new challenge and are more than happy to put our time, effort and resources into working with you to learn something new, and ultimately to better ourselves.
If you would like to speak with our team about how we can help you, please get in contact.
Supportive
LFA Machines prides itself on being a supportive environment. We fundamentally understand that our business is supporting you in your business. Our three other values of Growth, Learning and Bettering Ourselves all allow us to be the most supportive we can to your business.
We have found that one of the best ways to be supportive is to listen. We know that it is you who is facing the challenges and have the unique ideas, and we have so much to learn from you. LFA Machines actively works to listen to its customers.
When speaking to our existing customer base, one of the major issues that they highlighted was access to information. What machinery should they buy? How much does it cost? What licenses do they need? Training, shipping, tax? The list went on.
To overcome this and be more supportive, we have made sure we are the most transparent machinery retailer that we know. We list all of our prices on our site. You do not have to request a quote, saving you time and allowing you to easily calculate how much an investment will cost you.
Part of having access to information was also having it in a way that made it easy to use. We currently have technical support in English, German, Mandarin, Japanese and Spanish and are always looking to grow our team in a way that facilitates better communication with you.
Another key issue that our customers have told us they need support with is training. That is why we offer free on-site training to any of our customers for life. This can be taken at any one of our facilities. If you are not able to visit us in person, we are happy to give technical support over the phone or you can use one of our many other resources such as our manuals, tutorial videos or web tools.
We back all of this up with ongoing maintenance support. Our customers have made it clear to us that the best way we can support them is by having spare parts in stock and ready to ship. All of the machines are backed up with parts warranties that range from 180 days to 3 years. Even if your machine is out of its warranty, we are still happy to help with fairly priced spare parts that you can order from our website with express shipping.
If you have any questions or would just like to talk to someone about how LFA Machines can best support your business, please do get in contact.