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News Release from: Clamason Industries | Subject: Pressings
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 08 January 2007
Pressings for curtain airbag inflator
Clamason Industries manufactures two versions, a left and a right hand, of a curtain airbag inflator housing for the Jaguar X-Type and X-Type Estate models being assembled at Ford's Halewood plant.
Clamason Industries manufactures two versions, a left and a right hand, of a curtain airbag inflator housing for the Jaguar X-Type and X-Type Estate models being assembled at Ford's Halewood plant The components, two per car, are supplied on a just-in-time basis to the first-tier supplier TRW at Peterlee, Co Durham, where the curtain airbags and 9in long, round inflators are all fitted
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 11 Apr 2006 at 8.00am (UK)
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Clamason supplies the housings in galvanised CR4 mild steel and produces them on its Chin Fong Worcester transfer press line.
This line of six presses located together provides rapid transfer of individual pressings between stations by pick-and-place robots.
Chin Fong is Taiwan's biggest press manufacturer.
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By turning over the blank after the first stage, this line enables the same press tool to make both left and right hand versions of the housing - a huge competitive cost advantage for tooling.
The transfer press line also allows far more work to be done at each stage because there is no need for a carry strip, which would only get in the way and later have to be removed.
A brand new idea, the curtain airbag inflator housing was initially conceived by world-class design engineers based in Detroit at both Ford and TRW, with Clamason making considerable inputs subsequently into the design as well as the downstream automation facilitated by automation engineers located at Darlington, Teesside.
Accordingly, the successful project represents a fine and well co-ordinated team effort and achievement by the four parties.
The Clamason concept is to exploit the fact that its customer TRW can bend the mild steel material - once only - to close around the inflator.
It has proved so successful that the same principle is now applied by TRW to airbag inflator housings made by Clamason for a General Motors SUV (sport utility vehicle) built and assembled in Mexico.
The SUV line runs at 250 vehicles per week, in comparison with a weekly production rate of 650 for the Jaguar X-Type and 180 for the X-Type Estate.
Clamason's material properties solution of folding steel shut to enclose a device and their cost-saving process solution of the transfer press line have now been successfully carried over to various other components.
Accordingly Clamason uses the same principles to make the tethers securing the airbag to the roof of both Jaguar X-Type models and the GM SUV, six per car.
Clamason employed the idea, too, to realise the design of another type of housing, for an airbag inflator deploying special roll-over curtains on the BMW 5 Series.
The customer was Simula, Inc, a US defence and personnel safety equipment OEM located at Tempe, Arizona.
The automotive business of Simula recently sold its UK factory at Ashington, Northumberland, to French company Zodiac, a producer of airbag fabric as well as of military and professional rigid inflatable boats or RIB's.
In fact Clamason has expanded into making enclosures for several of the World's five airbag OEM's.
Another is Delphi Automotive Systems, who has designated Clamason as a "Worldwide Supplier of Choice".
Delphi, headquartered in Troy, Michigan, USA, is the World's largest automotive supplier with around 200,000 employees and 200 wholly-owned manufacturing sites and is Clamason's no.1 automotive customer.
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