The Birth of a World Class Factory

There are not many UK manufacturers who can list China as one of its biggest export markets, but with 30 percent of our turnover heading to the far east, it is a claim to fame we are rightly proud of at Brandauer.

From our 45,000sqft factory in the heart of Birmingham, UK, we produce more than 60 million pressed metal components for customers in the Shenzen region every year with a further 750 million finding their way to facilities all over the United States.
In fact, potential customers still struggle to come to terms with a complete reversal in power and especially a UK manufacturer firmly in the driving seat.
However, it is not a position we have found ourselves in by accident. When faced with increased competition from the emerging industrial powers we were forced to look long and hard at our business.
‘What do we do well?’ – ‘What do we do that isn’t so good?’ – ‘Where will the growth markets be in years to come?’
These questions all took many hours of debate in the boardroom and ended up formulating a strategy that focused on sustained investment in the latest machinery, development of our people and implementing best practice manufacturing processes.
Moving with the times was no longer an option; we had to be ahead of the game in technical expertise, design, quality and our ability to add value.
Our involvement in the Midlands Assembly Network (www.man-group.co.uk), a collective of ten sub-contractors, has given us a great competitive edge and a pool of expertise we can tap into at any one time.

The Journey

When we asked customers for a tour of the factory, you can immediately see their gaze focus on our 2 micron wire EDM capacity (£250,000) or the latest camera inspection technology that now plays such a big role in our improved quality scores.
Those who truly know manufacturing will tell you the real eye opener has not been the technology but the change in culture, from the boardroom through to the middle management and on the shop floor. In short, all 50 of our staff are committed to making Brandauer a truly world class supplier of stamped components.
It’s not been an easy journey and it certainly hasn’t been one without numerous hurdles, some of which seemed daunting at the time.
Lean manufacturing has become central to our philosophy with continuous improvement, value stream mapping and cell production evident throughout our factory.
£1.5m has been invested in the last five years on a fully equipped tool room (Including vertical machining centre and speed hole driller), the latest CAD/CAM facilities and presses ranging from five tonnes to 125 tonnes.
In April next year, we will also be taking delivery of two new Bruderer BSTA 510-125B2 and BSTA 280-88B2 presses, giving us the capacity to produce two billion additional parts each year. This investment in kit has been mirrored with significant resources being pumped into development opportunities and NVQ training.
There has also been a real commitment to solving an ageing workforce by generating the engineers of the future through foundation degree opportunities and apprenticeships.

Competitive Edge

Five years into the evolving growth strategy and we are well on target to break the £10m annual sales barrier for the first time in our 149 year history. We’ve successfully diversified our customer base so that it is spread across automotive, telecommunications, white goods, medical, and increasingly, parts for alternative power sources.
Latest performance figures suggest that new business wins are being greeted by 10 percent reductions in waste across the plant and £50,000 savings in energy usage – partly secured through a switch to LED lighting. Furthermore, August also bought with it our best ever PPM scores, which were 50 percent below target levels.
All of this puts us in a great position to be able to compare international rivals on pricing. So if it’s a straight race with innovation, design and ability to deliver complex pressings, then more times than not we will come away with the purchase order.

By Rowan Crozier,
Sales & Marketing Director (C Brandauer & Co Ltd)
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Written for and published in the Manufacturing Digital magazine