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Mason & King, Right first time

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Manufacturing in Action, Source : The Manufacturer
Published : July 2005

Adding design for manufacture to the service package has transformed the outlook of sheet metal fabricator Mason & King. Jayne Flannery talked to Jim Trotter, joint managing director

Mason & King has specialised in sheet metal fabrication since 1954. Based at Leicester, the company offers a comprehensive range of up to the minute facilities, including laser cutting, brake press bending, welding, powder coating and full mechanical assemblies. Flexibility has always been an important aspect of Mason & King’s service offering. Traditionally, the company has catered to the full spectrum of demand, ranging from the supply of a simple metal bracket through to a fully painted and fitted out assembly.

Over the years, the family run business has invested heavily in state-of-the-art equipment to remain at the cutting edge of the sector. Moreover the business has developed a formidable reputation for tackling more complex high-end assemblies. Value, in preference to volume has always been the preferred path. Typically, Mason & King has specialised in smaller batch sizes ranging from 10 through to 500 that have demanding or unusual manufacturing parameters.

However, the company has still found itself reeling under the competitive pressures of both domestic and overseas suppliers. In particular, low cost manufacture in eastern Europe has seen the development of a new and unpleasant scenario. The market has been dominated by a relentless downward pressure on costs in recent years. It has become normal practice for customers to tout their component or assembly around Europe and then opt for the cheapest fabricator. Continuing to operate as a standard sub-contractor meant that life could only become more difficult and margins would continue to be eroded. Despite the company’s high-end positioning in the market place, some kind of further differentiation was needed.

Jim Trotter, joint managing director took up the story. “Historically, we have had among our strong customer base a company that is a specialist in electronics and software writing – supplying digital phone booths and kiosks for topping up your mobile. They would contact an outside design agency who would design the product on their behalf and then they would source a manufacturer. That is when the fun would start. The devil is in the detail and concepts that look wonderful on paper can prove to be ultimately unworkable without disciplined engineering input.” As a way forward, it was obvious that adding a new dimension to the business that involved designing products, as well as manufacturing them would be to the benefit of everyone involved.

Mason & King had been using 2D CAD to interface with customer’s designs for a number of years. It was a logical step to take it a stage further. The adoption of 3D CAD enables the company to offer a full product design service that promises to get it right first time while realising significant cost savings and high repeatability. Adding a design service has also meant that the business can fully leverage its engineering expertise, but retain its core competence in sheet metal fabrication.

So far the response from customers has been extremely encouraging. “From our customer’s perspective, taking ownership for both design and manufacture has removed a problematic link from the chain,” he commented. It has also achieved a dramatic reduction in lead times. Speed to market is a critical dimension to maximising the profitability of new product launches before the ‘me-too’ brigade of imitators join in. “Whereas previously it might take six months to move from concept to prototype, it can now be achieved in as little as six weeks,” he said.

The old scenario used to be that larger customers would have regular meetings to look at how cost could be driven out of the manufacturing process after being designed. Now the emphasis has shifted to getting it right from day one. “Revisiting and revising old designs is not straightforward,” he said. “Once a product design has been tested and certified it is very difficult and expensive to change.”

Mason & King is also systematically reinforcing its capacity to become involved in more complex, challenging and cosmetically demanding work. “We are now working with our third generation of Trumpf laser technology,” Trotter continued. Trumpf is Europe’s largest laser manufacturer and the company has worked with them for 30 years. As well as a number of flatbed lasercutting installations, Mason & King is one of the few companies in the UK that has also exploited combined punching and lasercutting technology.

As an example of the sort of projects the company is tackling, he pointed to the range of engine hood assemblies that Mason & King has undertaken for the last 10 years on behalf of one of Japan’s leading construction equipment manufactures. Another complex assembly used in a refuse vehicle requires a wide range of different materials, a high number of components and a large degree of coded welding.

The company’s quality manager, Andrew Mason has also been pioneering new joint quality initiatives with customers and looking at ways in which partnership working can support lean manufacturing. Recent accreditation to the ISO 9001/2 standard has paved the way for a number of projects.

In particular, Mason & King is working with the DTI funded Suppliers to Motor Manufacturers Forum which aims to use supply chain collaboration as the platform for driving cost out of the manufacturing process. “It is a new route for us and a very exciting time,” said Mason. “At the moment, we are looking at the flow of information and the flow of parts within different product groups and we are also sharing some six sigma initiatives with our customers.”

Trotter believes that the new approach the business is adopting is already reaping dividends. “We are in the process of completing new products for a customer in Norway and we have also received a new order from a company in Germany.