I once read an article written by someone who subsequently claimed to have dreamt the content of the article while sat on a railway platform. Two minutes of inspiration, while waiting for a connection, inspired him to grab the first available piece of paper where upon he went onto draft his ideas. His inspiration resulted in one of the most famous brand names and logo in the market place today.
My own moment of inspiration, was not so famous or romantic, and came to me at 3.30pm in the afternoon while asking the impossible in our warehouse. We are persistently asked for specialist vacuum cleaners with unique voltages Hz, filtration and various power supply and special requirements. And you want it there sooner than yesterday! How could we procure such specialist units at off the shelf delivery times and prices?
The principle of Interlok came to me long before we decided on a brand-name and logo. The basics are, that the base, the cylinder, and power head on most of our vacuums are the same or similar diameter. Rather than attempting to stock one of the 150 plus models of vacuum units we sell (albeit the order is always for the one that we don’t stock) we found a novel way of instantly assembling special units. When we receive an order for an Interlok vacuum, we take the base, insert the filter, and add on the required power head. The bases range from 9 to 200 Ltrs. Filtration units include wet, dry, oil, swarf, hazardous, and other fine filters, and the motor heads range from 1, 2, or 3 motors in various voltages or driven by compressed air. We think the combination and model range is unlimited, and the principle of locking pieces together in this way means we can meet extremely tight deadlines, at standard off the shelf prices.
