INSIGHT
The Nord-Lock Group now holds a broad range of innovative products, all designed and developed in-house
space and three employees, Superbolt Inc was formed in
1988, growing to become Steinbock’s primary business. Today manufacturing is carried out at Superbolt’s Pennsylvanian facility and in St Gallenkappel, Switzerland, by sister company P&S Vorspannsysteme AG, a partnership that brought the concept to the European market and adapted it to meet the specifications and materials used here. P&S employs 50 people; nearly a fifth are qualified engineers, essential when more than half of all Superbolt assemblies are supplied to specific application requirements.
Talking synergies At the most obvious level, of course, here are two companies
that have developed innovatively engineered but quite distinctive solutions to the perennial problem of loosening of bolted joints. Each, too, has demonstrated a single-minded commitment to the development of their solution. As Elisabet Österlund, who joined Nord-Lock around four years ago, expresses: “I think the key to success for Nord-Lock as a company was its focus on the one product, its courage in doing this and its unwillingness to be diverted by other things.” Inherent in that focus is an absolute commitment to product quality and performance. That hardly comes as a surprise. These are after all products that come into their own in the most challenging of bolted joint applications – Elisabet again: “Even though it is a small component it has a very big impact.” However, as the conversation progresses it is abundantly
clear that there is an almost genetic determination to ensure quality and safety – which even in a few weeks has developed a resonance between the senior engineers in each company. Maxime Thonnerieux, for example, is quick to reinforce Norbert Schneider’s description of P&S traceability and quality assurance procedures. “What is impressive is taking care of the supply chain, controlling the raw material supply, exercising tight control over sub contract processes.” For Nord-Lock the approach to quality necessarily runs hand in hand with the achievement of high productivity levels in a Scandinavian plant. That has meant adopting lean manufacturing principles that place high levels of responsibility for quality assurance throughout the production sequence, but then overlaying an intensive final inspection regime. “We control the whole chain,” says Elisabet. “From the design, we have the engineering resources, we have the people who understand the applications and customer needs. We have our own production, to control the quality and supply.”
“Pre-engineered products” Both Nord-Lock and Superbolt products are the culmination
of a very substantial level of both physical and intellectual engineering to meet what Maxime Thonnerieux describes as a binary issue. “In bolt security there is failure or no failure.” The awareness of that criticality pervades everything the company does. “There is a lot of unseen engineering behind two apparently simply washers. They have to allow a perfect tightening process, absolute resistance to vibration and loosening, and still permit straightforward, deliberate untightening. They also have to work totally reliably across an extraordinarily diverse spectrum of applications – a lot of different materials, a lot of different loads applied to the system. We have to envisage all the potential applications for the product worldwide and ensure that its design and manufacture will never create a problem for a particular application.” For Norbert Schneider both companies are supplying
essentially a “pre-engineered” product. “We are offering engineering solutions that make it simple for the customer. They can select a product to suit their application and all the design work, all of our knowledge about the application, is already integrated into the product ensuring it will perform as required.” Where Superbolt is unique, in Elisabet Österlund’s eyes, is in its responsiveness to the special requirements that make up more than half of its business. Norbert Schneider concurs: “The experience we have gained in different industries and applications allows us to react very quickly to a special demand. We have a range of standard parts that we can mix to produce something new, very quickly. The whole system is based on the jackbolt and we have a very extensive inventory, every size, every length, every material. That’s the core. The nut body has a straightforward function, to transfer the load from the jackbolts to the main bolt so that is something that can be machined to suit an application very quickly. Then we have the hardened washer, for which we hold a full range to match the jackbolts.” Again not surprisingly, P&S and Nord-Lock share an almost identical - and extensive - list of approvals attesting to their products assured capabilities across applications.
Securing so much more Given the intensity of engineering invested in both Nord-Lock and Superbolt and the critical applications and extreme environments in which they are most likely to be installed a discussion on understanding life cycle profitability is inevitable.
104 Fastener + Fixing Magazine • Issue 72 November 2011
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156