The company manufactures various components for its aerospace and automotive customers, including high-pressure fuel pipes, electrical conduits and hydraulic pipes, small bore fabricated pipe assemblies such as fuel manifolds and air breather pipes.

CNC lathes and machining centres produce components that are welded or brazed to precision cut and bent tube under strict quality control. In-house computer-aided design contributes to the development of Freeman & Proctor’s customers’ products, with value analysis playing an important role in keeping prices competitive. Similarly, non-destructive testing plays a vital role, with facilities at Nuneaton including X-ray, fluorescent and penetrant flaw detection, as well as air and hydraulic pressure testing.

In the aerospace market components are typically complex configurations in difficult materials and called off in small batch quantities. On conventional hydraulically-powered tube bending machines set-ups can take up to two hours to complete and depend heavily on individual operator skill and know-how. In contrast, the new BLM machine uses ‘stacked’ pre-set tooling on each of its two heads, thereby accommodating Freeman & Proctor’s six sizes of tube and specific bending requirements without incurring significant set-up time penalties.

“Because of overseas low labour cost competition we have tended to go for the more challenging parts,” says Roy Collett. “This involves larger sizes of tube and greater complexity, which is why we have installed the BLM E-TURN. Scheduled business allows us to plan long-term investment but I also want this new machine to attract new business, by inviting people to see it in action and alerting prospective customers to our new capability.”

www.freemanandproctor.co.uk