By 1963, the jet age had transformed international travel, allowing Stuart to meet American and European suppliers in person, even if each journey still meant months overseas.
From that first overseas journey, relationships were formed with companies such as HPC (USA), RST (UK) and Berthold Neiman (Germany), partnerships that would support the business for decades. Many of the companies from that era have since disappeared through closures or acquisitions, but those early connections helped shape LSC’s international outlook.
Back home, the 1960s saw strong local manufacturing growth. Australia had several key blank producers including Nelson (SA), Martin (Melbourne), Dahlson and Clavis Industries with EzyCut. At the same time, major manufacturers such as Lockwood, Lane, Astra and Efco were expanding, and LSC played an important role wholesaling these products while continuing to import specialised tools, machines and key blanks.
By the early 1970s, Stuart’s regular interstate travel gave way to the demands of managing a rapidly growing company. Additional sales staff were employed, always with a strong emphasis on product knowledge, a principle that remains central to LSC today.
Competition was intensifying. Dominion Lock (DL), distributed locally by the Mills family, offered an extensive range of over 2,000 key blank profiles. While both EzyCut and the emerging Edmonds range performed strongly across the fastest-moving 200 profiles, the breadth of the Dominion range made it increasingly competitive in a market that demanded variety.
The economics of producing profile after profile for a relatively small Australian market became increasingly difficult to justify. LSC could no longer rely on EzyCut alone - we needed a global manufacturing partner to compete effectively.