Brandauer & KSR work together towards ultimate precision

Brandauer’s journey into pressed metal and stamped components began in 1862 when Charles Brandauer took on his father-in-law’s pen manufacturing and distribution business. Their products predominantly consisted of steel pens and pen holders produced at the company site on New John Street West in Birmingham.

Over the next century the business would evolve from producing and supplying pens across the world, to diversifying its production in the mid 1990’s to light pressings for the then rapidly expanding motor industry. Adapting to industry demand at the time allowed Brandauer to harness new technologies, ultimately setting the foundation for the company’s future success.

Today, as one of the largest presswork and stampings companies in Europe, Brandauer produces high precision metallic stamped components for the automotive, electronics, medical, healthcare, construction and renewable energy sectors.

Offering a wide variety of services from prototyping, design, in-house tool production and specialist tool transfer, right through to high-volume manufacturing and quality logistics.

The company’s high standards are maintained through the consistent delivery of accurate and quality presswork and stampings, a fundamental prerequisite in the automotive industry.

To uphold their reputation as a world-leading manufacturer of precision metal components, Brandauer acknowledged their need to improve and advance their in-house measurement processes. Working with their customer KSR, a Tier 2 automotive manufacturer, they sought to find the ultimate metrology solution.

KSR has maintained its position, since 1946, as a global leader in the production of world-class automotive components. The company designs, manufactures and tests these parts in order to meet the exacting specifications required of global OEM & Tier 1 suppliers.

Through their partnership, Brandauer and KSR sought a non-contact measurement solution. They required a metrology solution that would provide accurate, repeatable and advanced measurement capabilities, whilst being intuitive and easy to operate. Using each company’s individual requirements and specifications as a guideline, they chose an OGP SmartScope measuring machine based on its ability to completely fulfil their requirements.

Brandauer CEO, Rowan Crozier explained, “Customers choose Brandauer for our ability to supply components to micron tolerances, and in order to deliver to that standard we needed the capabilities that OGP’s multi-sensor measurement machines had to offer.”

“We selected the OGP Vantage 300 model for its advanced capabilities, including the ability to measure and report very complex GD&T.”

Mr Crozier continued, “OGP’s industry expertise and measurement knowledge really helped us to make an informed choice.”

As the pioneer of multi-sensor measurement machines, OGP’s SmartScope offers the most sophisticated and advanced metrology platforms available and with over 25 years of experience supplying metrology solutions to the UK and Ireland, OGP UK confidently offer advanced service and support to ensure your inspection process remains fast, repeatable and accurate.

OGP UK helped both Brandauer and KSR throughout the installation process and provided dedicated on-site training, support and programming to ensure full implementation was achieved in the shortest time possible. This enabled both businesses to seamlessly replace existing contact measuring methods quickly and efficiently with significant and measurable benefits.

Quality Manager at KSR Electronics Systems, Gareth Stevens, works closely with Brandauer to ensure manufactured parts remain within tolerance. Being responsible for product quality all the way down the supply chain meant that Mr Stevens had a keen interest in the success of this installation.

“Brandauer on our behalf purchased two OGP Vantage machines to ensure product precision was consistent. It was critical that we had a non-contact optical system that would integrate all of the measurement requirements necessary for us as a Tier 2 automotive manufacturer, the Vantage did just that.” he commented.

“You cannot put a price on the benefits we’ve experienced as a result of our Vantage 300 machine. The CMM enables us to ensure product precision that is second to none and relay that back to our customers,” Mr Stevens explained.

One of Brandauer’s most complex measurement tasks followed the installation of their Vantage 300 which, with OGP UK’s help, they were able to simplify the task and get up and running much faster.

Mr Crozier concluded, “I would not hesitate in recommending OGP UK to another engineering company in need of a complex metrology system, because of this machine we are now reviewing all of our measurement methods and will certainly turn to OGP again in the future.”