New sales manager for Latin America

New sales manager for Latin America: Friction welding machine maker Thompson has appointed a new multi-lingual sales manager for South America

Thompson secures its future and safeguards jobs

Thompson secures its future and safeguards jobs: THOMPSON SECURES ITS FUTURE AND SAFEGUARDS JOBS

Thompson machine goes down under

Thompson machine goes down under: The Australian mining boom is paying dividends for Thompson after it was chosen to supply a friction welding machine to one of the country's top drilling equipment manufacturers. The award-winning Halesowen company has produced a custom-built system for joining drill rod and pipe components at Remet Engineers, a subsidiary of mining services provider Ausdrill, based in Perth.

THOMPSON CELEBRATES BUMPER CROP OF NEW ORDERS

Friction welding machine manufacturer Thompson continues to defy the economic downturn with a glut of new orders worth more than £5 million.

The flourishing Halesowen-based company has been chosen to supply its award-winning equipment and a range of associated engineering services to component makers in Asia, Europe and the Pacific Rim.

Truck parts manufacturers in China have ordered two machines with another three models destined for a construction machine maker's factories in Italy and Australia.

Thompson puts its success down to the efforts of its dedicated workforce including its eight-strong sales and customer service team, who clinched the deals for the crop of new orders all in a single month.

"In spite of the tough economic climate, we're delighted to have secured this impressive amount of new orders, which includes some from existing customers who remain loyal because of our track record for quality equipment and high levels of customer support," commented Peter Lovegrove, Thompson's operations director.

"This latest success also shows that our determination to invest heavily in our core values of people, products, presence and partnerships continues to pay off, even in the most challenging trading conditions," he added.

Thompson produces machine for world's largest auto axle maker

A Thompson friction welding machine capable of producing more than 150,000 truck axles a year has been installed at the world's largest automotive axle maker in China.

Thompson, the Halesowen-based manufacturer, has also used the world's strongest industrial robot, a KUKA Titan, for the automated component loading/unloading operation at Fuwa's factory in Guangdong Province.

The heavy-duty robot undertakes a series of tasks using a specially-designed, dual-purpose end effector, which means it can hold a trio of unwelded parts at the same time as it unloads a 160kg welded axle assembly from the machine.

After loading the set of components to be welded in to the system, the robot places the finished assembly on to an output conveyor before returning to the input conveyor to pick up its next batch of parts.

Fuwa's Vipan Bhalla said Thompson had been chosen for the project because of the superior build quality, performance and reliability of its truck axle friction welding machines.

Thompson produced the machine in a double-ended design so that two welds can be performed simultaneously to join the fabricated steel banjo to a pair of turned spindles.

Other special features of the machine include a centring bung, a special device for securing the components in position so that tight tolerances can be achieved, as well as a shear flash removal tool.

"This is one of our largest automation projects to date and represents the first time that we have integrated such a heavyweight robot model with a friction welding system," explained Nick Edge, Thompson's global sales manager.

THOMPSON TARGETS MORE SALES SUCCESS IN THE AERO SECTOR

Award-winning friction welding machine manufacturer Thompson has signalled its ambitions to further build on its success in the aerospace market with the appointment of a dedicated sales manager for the sector.

Simon Jones, who joined the Halesowen-based company in 2005, has been promoted from his role as head of sales for Asia to the new position of global aerospace sales manager.

His responsibilities not only include developing new business for Thompson's well-established range of rotary friction welders, but also its new series of linear friction welding machines, which are specially designed for joining aero components.

Rob Stevens has succeeded Simon as Thompson's Asia sales manager and was previously global business development manager at NIS, a specialist integrated engineering company. A graduate in manufacturing engineering, he has also worked for Rolls-Royce and Siemens.

"The creation of a dedicated aerospace sales manager position underlines Thompson's commitment to further expanding its presence in the worldwide aerospace market, a key objective for the company following the development of our new linear friction welding machinery," explained Nick Edge, Thompson's global sales manager.

Thompson, the holder of a Queen's Award for Enterprise (International Trade), says its linear friction welding equipment can produce components at a fraction of the cost of other traditional manufacturing methods. Visit www.linearfrictionwelding.com for more details.

Leading independent research organisation, The Welding Institute, has just ordered an E20 linear machine for its facility in Cambridge and will use it for welding a variety of aero parts such as blisks in a selection of materials including titanium, nickel and aluminium alloys.

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Midlands based Thompson is choice of TWI for linear friction welding task

Midlands based Thompson is choice of TWI for linear friction welding task