Pattern-maker breaks into railway industry

NPL Technologies, the UK's largest pattern-maker and a major supplier to the automotive, aerospace and motor sport industries, has recently won a number of contracts in the railway industry

As a result of employing techniques it has developed for the automotive industry NPL Technologies, the UK's largest pattern-maker and a major supplier to the automotive, aerospace and motor sport industries, has recently won a number of contracts in the railway industry.

These include contracts for rail track component castings for Pandrol Limited.

The renewed focus on improvements in rail transportation has opened up a new market for NPL Technologies and its success is based on introducing a number of 'time-compression' techniques it has been using for some time in the automotive sector.

Product life cycles are becoming shorter and business success or, indeed, survival is now more and more dependent on rapid product development.

A number of techniques such as concurrent engineering and rapid prototyping have emerged which speed up the product process from concept to customer.

NPL has been using these techniques in the automotive industry to reduce development time and cost in response to the demand for new products.

Recent projects for railways have demanded the adoption of these 'time compression' techniques which has resulted in prototype parts being available within days rather than, as previously, within weeks.

Key to this has been the involvement of NPL at the concept stage allowing the expertise of the pattern maker and foundry industry to influence the intentions of the product designer.

Secondly, the ability of NPL to 'import' a 3D model from the customer's design authority and then turn it into a foundry pattern or die has resulted in the availability of the tool within time frames of, until now, unprecedented brevity.

The use of the 'source data' throughout the process not only reduces the time taken in the tool making process but significantly reduces the likelihood of error.

In addition to this approach, NPL still employ traditional processes but with a culture of 'rapid prototyping and rapid tooling' the customer can expect to receive fast turn around.

Although the core business of NPL is that of pattern/tool making, there has been the recognition that the availability of the tool is of only partial value to the customer and, more and more, NPL is undertaking the provision of prototype castings and fully machined parts and, in some instances, establishing low-volume production facilities to support the customer's initial product launch requirements.

In two recent projects the time from concept to full production has been halved when compared to the established methods.

Graham Shirley, Prototype Project Manager, said: "We have no doubt that as a result of our first projects for rail track components our engineering techniques can bring substantial savings in time and cost to the railway industry.".

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