EoW January 2014

News Corporate

Meeting customer demand

twists, protrusions, indentations – or just plain bends – can be accommodated and the William Hughes team of application engineers can help customers solve their engineering problems by offering a rapid design and prototyping service. This is particularly suited to the high volume sectors such as automotive. William Hughes has more than 200 years’ experience in producing bent wire components and wire form assemblies. Today it is one of the most advanced producers in Europe, with high-tech manufacturing facilities in Dorset, UK, and Plovdiv, Bulgaria. William Hughes Ltd – UK Website : www.wmhughes.co.uk Price rise Ugitech – Schmolz + Bickenbach Group – announced a price increase on its stainless steel bars, wire rod and drawn wire products, effective 2 nd October. Schmolz + Bickenbach Group – Germany Website : www.schmolz-bickenbach.com turns, spirals,

William Hughes continues to find new ways to meet its customers’ requirements for precision wire assemblies with the introduction of an overmoulding capability for wire parts. The new process dispenses with the need for metal retaining clips in assemblies such as car seats – providing an assembly that is both strong and fast to manufacture. The new process can be applied to a wide range of wire assemblies and requires the wire parts to be manufactured to a high accuracy. The components are brought together using special tooling designed by William Hughes, and two vertical injection moulding machines perform the moulding process to complete the assembly. The overmoulding process allows for variations in the finished assembly – for example, in car seat assemblies retaining bars for the seat cloth can be included or where heated seats are required, connectors and cabling can be incorporated so that heating

elements can be simply plugged into the encapsulated boots. “Our expertise is in the design and manufacture of a wide range of bent wire components to high accuracy and this is critical for the manufacture of overmoulded assemblies,” said Emma Burgon, engineering director. “This means that the overmoulding process can be applied to a wide range of assemblies across many industries, providing benefits to our customers in terms of strength, versatility and speed of manufacture.” ▲ ▲ The William Hughes overmoulding capability demonstrated with this precision car seat assembly

Any 2D or 3D wire form that involves

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January 2014