Production Capabilities
BNL’s modern manufacturing facility in Knaresborough, England, operates a 3-shift system with machines operating 24 hours per day.
Production Sites
BNL’s modern manufacturing facility in Knaresborough, UK, boasts state-of-the-art moulding machines offering a clamping force range from 12 to 175 tonnes. Most machines are fitted with robots and are served by a fully automated material delivery system.
Twin-shot moulding machines provide additional flexibility to offer greater added value in design solutions, full process monitoring in order to meet the stringent quality standards demanded by BNL’s customers and automated rejection for non-conforming parts to guarantee the supply of a 100% right first time product.
Our 2,604sqm Thailand facility houses an assembly team, moulding department and tool production. The facility is equipped with new jigs, testing and measurement equipment, plus a range of new Krauss Maffei CX moulding machines spanning from 35 – 160 tonnes. All are equipped with the top of the range Krauss Maffei Quality Assurance System and in-process monitoring, including an ‘out-of- spec’ auto reject facility.
The new moulding and assembly capability has given us ample capacity for additional activities to be undertaken. For many customers who have sites in the Asia-Pacific region, we can facilitate bringing the stages of production closer together and improve overall supply chain efficiencies. Our Thailand facility is a self sufficient unit in moulding, assembly, tool production and maintenance. Having these services all under one roof allows us to maintain good supply lead-times and deliver significant benefits to our customers.
'right-first-time' manufacturing
To achieve the precision BNL bearings demand, they are moulded under tightly controlled conditions that have been fully researched and proven, so invariably BNL purchase injection-moulding machines that are tailor-made to specific requirements as opposed to “off the shelf” models. When injection moulding is not appropriate, for example, low-volume bearing manufacture, CNC machining is used as an alternative production method.
The company is constantly evolving to keep up with an increasingly demanding marketplace, and has adopted a "right first time" approach, with particular emphasis placed on continuous improvement and teamwork.
precision tooling
High quality tooling is essential to achieving a dimensionally stable and accurate plastic bearing. Often the development of the injection mould tool for a plastic bearing can take more man-hours than it does to produce the injection mould tool itself. BNL’s technology allows easy transitions from 3D product design to 3D tool design all under one roof, with the aid of a 3D modelling software package. BNL is significantly different to most other injection moulders, with the ability to accurately “family mould” multiple parts in one tool, having developed methods of process control to keep costs down.
cost reduction through automated assembly
To maintain high volumes of business BNL must be able to guarantee high output, 100% product quality, and competitive pricing. Automation is the ideal answer and the increased use of automated assembly machines has impressed customers by achieving a consistently high quality of product. Quality checks at different stages of the assembly process are integrated into these specially tailored machines - ball checks, grease checks, torque checks, and mass checks - to eliminate the risk of errors.
