Engineered components provider Avingtrans (LON:AVG) was flying high on Monday morning after bagging its first airport security scanning contract.
The company signed an initial contract and three-year framework agreement with Rapiscan, a leading security screening provider based in California. The contract is worth more than £3.5mln.
Avingtrans will provide key components for Rapiscan's new airport scanner, the RTT110, which is the first scanner to successfully pass the European Civil Aviation Conference's (ECAC) Standard 3 threat detection test for baggage-borne explosive risks - a standard that will become compulsory for airports around the world by 2020.
Meanwhile, Avingtrans's Stainless Metalcraft unit has signed a framework agreement with Bruker BioSpin, a Swiss maker of magnetic resonance instruments, to produce high-integrity cryostat components, in a deal worth £1mln a year.
A cryostat is a device that maintains temperatures at a very low level.
Austen Adams said both deals marked an important development in the diversification of the Energy & Medical division, of which he is the managing director.
"We have been working with Rapiscan to develop its RTT110 scanner for a some time now and this supply contract means we can now ramp up production to meet fast-growing demand. Security is a real challenge for airports as passenger numbers increase around the world but, until now, this increase has not been matched by advances in security risk detection technology," Adams said.
"We will work closely with Bruker to develop a fully value-engineered solution for the components for their NMR [nuclear magnetic resonance] programmes, ensuring all procedures and processes are firmly established, before transitioning the work to our Chinese site, which will not only bring additional cost efficiency but also bring the manufacturing closer to end customer locations," he added.
Shares in Avingtrans were up 5.1% in late-morning trading.