Good reputation pays off
HT Brigham managing director Barry Smith and sales manager Andy Essom
A word-of-mouth recommendation has led to HT Brigham solving a component manufacturing problem for one the USA’s largest automotive manufacturers.
The Coleshill–based pressworkers helped the customer overcome problems of recurrent failures in a complex machined casting by redesigning the part as a pressed assembly. This was not only more reliable but also more cost-effective and more suited to high-volume manufacture.
The company has now been nominated as the chosen supplier for this hugely significant assembly contract and has received purchase orders for full production.
The contract win will not only provide a very significant addition to the company’s existing turnover, but will also assist H T Brigham’s continued investment in its future growth.
The company’s involvement started in June 2010 when, out of the blue, an email arrived from the senior platform engineering manager for one of the USA’s largest automotive manufacturers. In conversation with a colleague, he had been given H T Brigham’s details and a glowing report on the cooperative and approachable nature of the company.
This single and very important electronic communication was to be one of the most significant, company changing, interactions since it was set up in 1947.
H T Brigham was asked to provide its opinion regarding the manufacture of an alternative to a very complex machined casting, which formed a vital, long serving, but extremely troublesome, component of an OEM automotive assembly. The current part in question had an underlying problem with porosity, weakening the component and making it prone to failure in use.
Design development through computer simulation techniques proved that the process was viable and that the pressed component could be manufactured in just 2 operations, instead of the previous 5 operations, offering obvious cost savings. Having taken into account the failings of the previously used part, the finalised component design was also expected to perform far more reliably, as the dynamic weight of the finished assembly would be considerably reduced.
In field trials prototype components confirmed that the presswork method of manufacture could provide an improved alternative to the problematic cast component.
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