Brose produces door systems with international plant collaboration

Saarwellingen (27.11.2003). The automotive supplier Brose produces door systems for compact and middle-class vehicles of the Ford Group with plants in Germany and Belgium collaborating on this production. At the official opening ceremony of its new plant in Saarwellingen on Thursday, which was attended by Bernhard Mattes, head of Ford Werke AG, and Michael Stoschek, CEO of the Brose Group, the company presented the production of its Ford Focus C-Max door systems which are assembled and delivered in line with the customer’s own vehicle production schedule.

“Quality, flexibility and competitiveness are the basic pre-requisites necessary for surviving a competitive edge on the market. In this respect, Brose definitely sets standards,” said Bernhard Mattes. “I am particularly pleased about the fact that Brose, together with us, has succeeded in creating new jobs in Saarland.”

Brose took on 70 employees at the plant. These are currently producing door systems at a daily rate of about 4,000. The basic door systems are pre-assembled at the Brose plant at Hallstadt near Bamberg and then delivered on a just-in-time basis to the Saarwellingen plant. Within 60 minutes of receiving the customer’s order, components like the loudspeaker, wiring harness and door latch are mounted onto the basic door systems and delivered to the Ford’s Saarlouis plant two kilometers away. In the coming year, it is planned to double this volume when door systems are produced for other car models. The plant’s headcount will then increase to more than 120.

“We have managed to set up this plant in a record time of only six months from the groundbreaking ceremony to the beginning of operations at the plant”, said Kurt Sauernheimer, Brose Group director responsible for door systems. “The exceptionally fast negotiations with no red tape holding up the approval procedures at the local authorities as well as the early training of the production workers at our Hallstadt plant while construction activities at Saarwellingen were in progress facilitated a smooth beginning of operations.” The Brose Group invests around € 35 million in the collaborating plants, thereof some eight million euro in its new plant, the Group’s fifth location in Germany. Brose’s manufacturing facilities are in a building totaling 4,000 square meters.

The Brose plant interacts closely with the Ford factory in Saarlouis. The orders for the door system variants are received at the Brose plant via the data highway. At each of the four production lines, there is a computer which prints an order for each new door system. This order sheet accompanies the product throughout the entire assembly process. Barcode scanning and picture recognition ensure that the correct components are assembled depending on the variant required. The functionality of every single door system is tested at the inspection station at the end of the assembly line. Once packed in special containers, the products are loaded via an automated system onto the trucks and subsequently transported to the Ford plant. Brose has been delivering products on a just-in-sequence basis to automotive plants since 1997. Until today Brose has delivered around 40 million units worldwide.

At the same time as construction activities were going on in Saarwellingen, a modern production station for door systems was set up at the Hallstadt plant. There 50 jobs are being created. A seal is initially fixed highly automated onto the carrier base plate, separating the wet and dry area of the car door, the advantage of this design principle being that only the mechanical components of the latch and the window regulator are located in the wet area of the door. This innovative concept increases functional safety and cuts costs as it eliminates the necessity of sealing electrical and electronic components.
The window regulators are produced in cycle times of mere seconds and then assembled onto the basic door systems. These are then delivered by truck on a just-in-time basis to the final assembly at the Brose plant of Saarwellingen.

Apart from supplying the plant in Saarland, the Brose plant in Hallstadt also delivers these basic door systems to Gent in Belgium. Here, some 65 Brose employees carry out the final assembly of these cross-platform door systems for cars like the Volvo S40 of the Ford Group.

Brose since 1987 develops and produces door systems for various customers worldwide. Depending on customer requirements, Brose supplies individual components like window regulators, door latches and electronics as well as different technical variants of door systems including the complete door. The company’s own test center checks the crash safety of the car doors.

The automotive supplier Brose today holds a leading position in the world market. In the next five years, the door system business is expected to double. For this planned expansion, the corporate group is currently setting up new locations in Europe, the USA and Asia.

Press-Contact:
Christian Treinies
Telefon: +49 9561 21 2332
Telefax: +49 9561 21 1704
E-Mail: christian.treinies@brose.net