Uys Fick Engineering cc, trading as Lab-o-mat, was established in 1996, when the current owner, Uys Fick, bought a small sheet metal fabrication company called Lab-o-mat (Pty) Ltd in Montague Gardens near Cape Town. Soon afterwards customers started looking for small machines and that eventually led to the design of the first sachet machine for 5 liters of water. From that machine the first 1 liter machine was developed and since then sachet machines became Lab-o-mat's main line. Up to now we have produced almost 400 sachet machines and supplied them to customers all over Africa.

In 2009 we moved to the picturesque town of Philippolis in the Southern Free State province of South Africa. The main reason for this move was to be more or less in the geographical center of South Africa, so that we can be within a day's driving from any customer in RSA, should an emergency breakdown occur. The second reason was to counteract the countrywide trend of migration to the cities, which is economically disastrous for the small towns in rural areas. The third reason is the pleasure of living in a town where violent crime is non-existent and petty crime only happens sporadically!