Customer Spotlight | 5 Star

5 Star was formed in 1981. What started as a small, fairly local business has now grown to be one of the largest and most respected flight case manufacturers in the UK and Europe.

Keith Sykes acquired 5 Star Group holdings in 2008 from its previous owner of many years Jim Willis. With Keith Sykes approaching his long-earned retirement age, previous General Manager, Operations Director and Keith's Business partner Justin Locks has stepped in the MD`s shoes working, alongside previous Production and Operations Manager Ingus Lasinskis who has stepped up as Operations Director.

Over the years, significant investment has been made in state-of-the-art equipment including large format CNC machines, panel and extrusion saws, spraying and pressing systems and many more. The facility now occupies 46,000 sq. ft which includes production, administration, maintenance and storage facilities.

The company has around 75 staff and growing, many of whom have been with the company for years. Investment in staff as well as equipment is at the heart of 5 Star’s philosophy, and training is a key part of its operation.

“5 Star has been using Penn Elcom hardware for three decades at least; we were buying hardware from them when the company was still called Penn Fabrication!”, says Ingus. “We use Penn for several reasons… Our long-standing mutual relationship is important, the quality of their products, and also Penn Elcom have the scale to fulfil 5 Star’s ever-growing demand. A lot of their hardware is manufactured in the UK, this is a big plus as parts can be made to order at a very short notice and shipped straight to us.”

5 Star serves many industries including Entertainment, Medical, Military, Catering, Robotics, and Arts to name a few.

When we asked Ingus about some of their most memorable projects:
“There are too many to be able to mention something that really stands out of the crowd! Maybe a case for a chair that is grown from an actual tree, a bit like Groot but you can sit on it! A case for the Formula E car for Williams Engineering F1 Team, a case for Titanic`s sister ship Olympia’s Oak Ball Room door, a case and bag for a surfboard powered by a jet engine… the list just goes on and on!”

With their extensive industry and flight case knowledge, 5 Star’s crate development has been in the pipeline for several years, “One of our largest customers approached us in 2021 expressing the need for good quality crates. We decided that now was the right time to get this project completed.”

“We tasked Penn Elcom with making our own crate fasteners stamped with our logo and the first 10,000 were made and approved in Autumn 2021,” explains Ingus. “We have ordered plenty more of these since. 5 Star has been in the case business for 40 years, but we are the new guys when it comes to crates so we are yet to prove that our product is among the best and can be trusted by the shipping and logistics industry.”

Penn Elcom has developed and sells an extensive range of crating hardware, most are in stock and can be bought for next-day delivery. However, 5 Star likes to make things their own and stand out from the crowd, “the best way forward for us was to develop our own branded crate fasteners and trusted Penn Elcom to make them exclusively for us. With Penn Elcom's own range, we knew that our requirements would be fulfilled and the right product would be developed and delivered. We have our own hybrid aluminium location for cases (U-shaped profile that locates the lid and base together), and now we have our own clasps for crates… it’s the details that add the 5 Star signature,” concludes Ingus.