Avdel® offers product & assembly solutions to
many of the world's leading companies in industry sectors

This year Avdel® commemorates its 75th anniversary. As a leading company in mechanical joining, Avdel can look back on a long and proud tradition since its founding in 1936 characterized by innovative ideas and products. With a programme of events to celebrate the 75th anniversary, we can recognise the pride held within the team at Avdel UK Ltd at their global manufacturing facility based in Warrington.

Picture: NeoSpeed® is a great example of Avdel's movement towards 'lean manufacturing' and also incorporating a more environmentally friendly 'greener' product.

The name Avdel® was derived from 'Aviation Developments', the company's original name when it was founded in 1936. At that time aircraft construction was moving from metal and wood to all metal structures. This required new fasteners and tools to install them. The Chobert® Speed Fastening® system was developed to meet these needs and is still widely used today. By the 1950's the company was focused on new value added assembly solutions. The "systems" approach created greater optimization and provided customers with a single source for dependable fasteners and installation equipment. In 1961 the company was renamed Avdel® and substantially grew through the next two decades. It quickly became one of the world's largest manufacturers of blind fasteners and installation tools. From the 1960's to the 1980's several new facilities were established in Europe, USA, and the Asia Pacific region. The large network of authorized distributors and concessionaries in over 40 countries helps to ensure product accessibility throughout the world.

Avdel® product headquarters remain in the modern Sales, Marketing & R&D facility in Welwyn Garden City, UK with manufacturing based in Warrington, UK, and Stanfield, USA. The manufacturing sites are complimented by the Infastech™ global distribution network. With over 300 employees across the two sites, the UK activity for Infastech™ is quite significant.  With Advanced Manufacturing being highlighted by the UK Government as key sector to rebalance the economy, we are able to recognize that the technologies born through Avdel are in fitting with this.

As part of the 75th Anniversary celebrations at the Warrington site the latest product was launched. NeoSpeed®, a new generation fastener that takes Speed Fastening® technology to the next level. NeoSpeed® has been developed and optimised using the latest Finite Element methods and delivers an assembly throughput up to four times greater than traditional threaded or breakstem fasteners. NeoSpeed® is a great example of Avdel's movement towards 'lean manufacturing' and also incorporating a more environmentally friendly 'greener' product.

Avdel® Infastech team.

Today Avdel® offers product & assembly solutions to many of the world's leading companies in industry sectors as diverse as automotive, electronics, construction and Industrial & Commercial applications. Avdel® engineers continue to work hand in hand to develop innovative solutions to ensure that our customers are always able to meet the demands of an ever changing world.

Avdel® is one of the leading global product brands from Infastech™. Infastech offers Avdel products through Sales, Distribution and Manufacturing facilities in over 150 countries.

For further information, view websites: www.avdel-global.com and www.infastech.com

Aegis software improves EE Technologies' production efficiency and quality

EE Technologies, Inc, an ISO/TS 16949:2009 certified Contract Manufacturing partner recently completed a full implementation of Aegis' Manufacturing Operations Software (MOS). This was effective in fulfilling their strategy to improve efficiencies and quality by streamlining and controlling process planning and launch, process tracking and control, and quality and test management. "Speed, control and visibility are core to competitiveness. We utilize technology to connect data to all of our factory processes for our customers' benefit", commented Sonny Newman, President of EE Technologies.

Aegis MOS provides the tools needed by production staff to translate engineering designs into manufacturing documentation. Aegis provides support for virtually every CAD type and simplifies programming of the machines that use the CAD data. It allows EET to automate their revision control processes; it also automates the distribution of information to operator workstations in sufficient detail for quality product building. All of this is achieved with a system which, being paperless, achieves an EET environmental corporate objective.

During manufacturing, materials are related to individual machines and stations at the point-of-use and are electronically validated against job parameters. As units travel through each station, their correct, validated material setup is guaranteed, and each unit then automatically inherits the currently loaded material set. This ensures that the right product is at the right station at the right time for the right job, and provides EET's customers with total traceability.

Users can now determine where any work order is located throughout the factory in real-time. Customer service often depends on delivering the information they need when they need it. Aegis allows EET to track WIP status and provide predictive job completion times. This is important to EET's customers.

Quality has to be built into any manufacturing process. The Aegis software collects data in real time, providing EET with the information necessary to build the product correctly, verify its quality during production and facilitate corrective actions. This data is also available for reports, visualizations, and real-time dashboards that can be configured and used by EET to constantly improve quality and efficiency. Traceability of every product is also achieved; this allows failures and rejections to be tracked down and eliminated before they become an issue for the customer.

EET's Director of Operations, Clay McElhany, summarizes Aegis MOS's benefits: "Investing in technology is just one of the ways we provide world class service to our customers. With Aegis, we have instant visibility of the process and product. We continually improve our processes to be more efficient and provide our customers with the best quality, delivery, and costs."

For further information, view website: www.aiscorp.com   Refer to page 84

Aegis software improves EE Technologies' production efficiency
and quality - Speed, control and visibility are core to competitiveness!

EE Technologies, Inc, an ISO/TS 16949:2009 certified Contract Manufacturing partner recently completed a full implementation of Aegis' Manufacturing Operations Software (MOS). This was effective in fulfilling their strategy to improve efficiencies and quality by streamlining and controlling process planning and launch, process tracking and control, and quality and test management. "Speed, control and visibility are core to competitiveness. We utilize technology to connect data to all of our factory processes for our customers' benefit", commented Sonny Newman, President of EE Technologies.

Aegis MOS provides the tools needed by production staff to translate engineering designs into manufacturing documentation. Aegis provides support for virtually every CAD type and simplifies programming of the machines that use the CAD data. It allows EET to automate their revision control processes; it also automates the distribution of information to operator workstations in sufficient detail for quality product building. All of this is achieved with a system which, being paperless, achieves an EET environmental corporate objective.

During manufacturing, materials are related to individual machines and stations at the point-of-use and are electronically validated against job parameters. As units travel through each station, their correct, validated material setup is guaranteed, and each unit then automatically inherits the currently loaded material set. This ensures that the right product is at the right station at the right time for the right job, and provides EET's customers with total traceability.

Users can now determine where any work order is located throughout the factory in real-time. Customer service often depends on delivering the information they need when they need it. Aegis allows EET to track WIP status and provide predictive job completion times. This is important to EET's customers.

Quality has to be built into any manufacturing process. The Aegis software collects data in real time, providing EET with the information necessary to build the product correctly, verify its quality during production and facilitate corrective actions. This data is also available for reports, visualizations, and real-time dashboards that can be configured and used by EET to constantly improve quality and efficiency. Traceability of every product is also achieved; this allows failures and rejections to be tracked down and eliminated before they become an issue for the customer.

EET's Director of Operations, Clay McElhany, summarizes Aegis MOS's benefits: "Investing in technology is just one of the ways we provide world class service to our customers. With Aegis, we have instant visibility of the process and product. We continually improve our processes to be more efficient and provide our customers with the best quality, delivery, and costs."

EE Technologies in profile
Headquartered in Reno, Nevada, we are an Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) provider focused on delivering complete engineering and manufacturing services to automotive, gaming, consumer, medical, and science education OEMs. We develop, manufacture, and ship electronics products for our customers through facilities in Nevada and Mexico. By combining development and engineering solutions with core electronics manufacturing services, we optimize our customers' operations and lower their cost with domestic manufacturing and manufacturing in Mexico. For further information, view website: www.eetechinc.com

Aegis in profile
Aegis systems provide hi-tech manufacturers improved speed, control, and visibility of all aspects of factory operations so they can do more with less. Today, manufacturers must maintain fewer assets, but achieve more utilization. They require less cost, but faster product launches and reporting, as well as less overhead, but total traceability. The Aegis Manufacturing Operations System (MOS) supports these goals, and delivers them in a way that defines and contains the investment required to complete the full system deployment.

For further information, view website: www.aiscorp.com   Refer to page 84