Pressworker’s Pioneering Design Spurs Recruitment Drive

By HT Brigham
schedule5th Sep 11

Birmingham based presswork manufacturer, H T Brigham is currently recruiting.

A major contract win for an innovative new fuel cell component, worth almost £4 million, has prompted the company to recruit additional manufacturing and production staff. The pressworker is seeking to take on an additional 15 employees, ranging from production operatives through to development engineers.

 

This win, along with the securing of several other high value orders and support from the Manufacturing Advisory Service, has also driven the manufacturer’s investment in plant and processes. By the end of 2011 the company will have invested a sum in excess of half a million pounds into securing its future growth.

While much of this figure has been invested in new machinery and factory re-development, to increase capacity and satisfy the demands of newly targeted market sectors, a significant portion has also been assigned to an intensive lean manufacturing programme. The implementation of 5S manufacturing principles, - Seiri (sort), Seiton (straighten), Seiso (shine), Seikeisu (standardise), and Shitsuke (sustain) aims to maximize efficiency and productivity by examining and streamlining the manufacturing process. With this programme well underway, the manufacturer has also placed a commitment to put each and every employee through a programme of Business Improvement Techniques, which will give them a national vocational qualification upon completion.

The order win, which has given the pressworker its latest boost and encouraged much of this new investment, is for supply into the lucrative energy generation sector. The benefits of supplying into this sector for a company like H T Brigham are considerable, due to the nature of the long-term, high volume contracts on offer.

 

When the enquiry was received, the component was little more than a concept, which had in-fact been declined by several pressworkers already. H T Brigham’s Team of Engineers, lead by Managing Director Barry Smith, were tasked with determining the feasibility of manufacture as a high volume, fully automated pressing. If achievable, this would be a cost effective alternative to other more labour intensive design proposals also being considered by the customer at that time.

 

Using cutting edge die simulation techniques, H T Brigham could prove that pressing was a viable manufacturing option, by identifying the level and location of any stresses in material which would occur during the manufacturing process.  By embracing the latest die coating technologies, the presswork method of manufacture would withstand the rigors of the demanding close tolerances and specifications which the customer had set.

 

Technical Sales Manager, Andrew Essom said, ‘Production of this component as a pressing not only drastically reduced the unit cost of the component, but also allowed the customer to pass on this significant cost reduction into its assembly and in turn secure long-term manufacture of the assembled product to their own customer.’

 

Following confirmation that the component could be pressed in high volume to the required tolerances, the customer placed tooling orders and a five year rolling commitment to high volume production, helping to safeguard existing jobs as well as creating new ones.