Clamason Industries Ltd produces in galvanised CR4 mild steel two versions, left and right handed, of a curtain airbag inflator housing for the Jaguar X-Type and X-Type Estate models being assembled at Ford's Halewood (UK) plant.

By turning over the blank after the first stage, Clamason's Chin Fong Worcester transfer press line enables the same press tool to make both left and right hand versions of the housing  –  a huge competitive cost advantage for tooling. This line of six presses located together provides rapid transfer of individual pressings between stations by pick-and-place robots.

The components, two per car, are supplied on a just-in-time basis to Ford's first-tier supplier TRW at Peterlee, Co Durham, UK, where the curtain airbags and 9in long, round inflators are all fitted. The Clamason concept is to
exploit the fact that its customer TRW can bend the mild steel material - once only - to close around the inflator. The idea has proved so successful that the same principle is now applied by TRW to airbag inflator housings made by Clamason for a General Motors SUV (sport utility vehicle) being built in Mexico. The SUV line runs at 250 vehicles per week, in comparison with a weekly production rate of 650 for the Jaguar X-Type and 180 for the X-Type Estate.

Clamason’s material properties solution of folding steel shut to enclose a device and their cost-saving process solution of the transfer press line have now been successfully carried over to various other components.

Accordingly Clamason uses the same principles to make the tethers securing the airbag to the roof of both Jaguar X-Type models and the GM SUV, six per car. Clamason employed the idea, too, to realize the design of another type of housing, for an airbag inflator deploying special roll-over curtains on the BMW 5 Series. The customer was Simula, Inc, a US defence and personnel safety equipment OEM located at Tempe, Arizona (www.simula.com). The automotive business of Simula recently sold its UK factory at Ashington, Northumberland, to French company Zodiac, a producer of airbag fabric as well as of military and professional rigid inflatable boats or RIB’s (www.zodiacautomotive.com).

In fact Clamason has expanded into making enclosures for several of the World’s five airbag OEM’s. Another is Delphi Automotive Systems, who has designated Clamason as a “Worldwide Supplier of Choice”. Delphi, headquartered in Troy, Michigan, USA, is the World's largest automotive supplier with around 200,000 employees and 200 wholly-owned manufacturing sites and is Clamason’s no.1 automotive customer.