Remploy Automotive, one of the UK’s leading automotive component manufacturers, is being used as a benchmark of excellence by leading aerospace company Airbus.
In its diamond jubilee year, the Midlands-based company has been visited by senior engineers from Airbus to learn more about their advanced production techniques. The pan-European aircraft maker was particularly keen to learn more about Remploy’s range of ‘error proof’ intelligent jigs. The technology was developed during a five-year research programme helping Remploy Automotive gain an enviable manufacturing record with a near zero defect component element.
Speaking after the visit, David Gibson, Airbus product assurance engineer, said, ‘We use some similar techniques but it was fascinating to see just how sophisticated the Remploy techniques were. We saw a blind worker able to carry out safety critical tests on a fuel system using the new technology. The way Remploy has developed this technology is quite remarkable and we will use the firm as a benchmark.’
Alan Sangster, technical manager at Remploy Automotive, said, ‘We are extremely proud that Airbus has taken such an interest in what we are doing. We have now been invited to visit them and we can exchange further ideas. A lot of our techniques and methodology may well be transferable to the aerospace industry.’
Remploy Automotive is part of Remploy Limited, the largest provider of jobs for disabled people in the UK. Last year it helped more than 12,000 people with a range of physical, sensory and mental disabilities to get work. Nearly all the employees of Remploy Automotive are disabled.
Airbus has a 20 billion Euro turnover and includes BAE Systems in the French, German, Spanish and UK partnership, recently unveiled the world’s first full double deck aeroplane, the A380 (pictured).
More from: www.remployautomotive.co.uk
