Additionally, our Engineers promote the inclusion of the ability to reuse, repurpose or recycle into the design.

TR’s involvement is essential at the concept and prototype stages to ensure the correct choice of fastening methodology, assisting in achieving your carbon targets, whilst optimising your designs and products.

The horizon of innovation is changing continuously in the race to a more sustainable ecosystem, and various disruptive technologies in manufacturing have become mainstream. At TR we aim to stay ahead of the curve and embrace the use of new and mixed materials, electrostatic finishes and composites with a focus on non-ferrous products within the electrification of mobility, whilst respecting commercial requirements.

Design for recyclability

Fasteners generally account for less than 2% of the complete product weight. Recycling value streams are therefore formulated around the materials with the highest content, are the most valuable or are easiest to recover. Fasteners can play a major role in the efficiency of recovery of materials by either aiding removability or the potential of separation, for example:

• Products manufactured of homogenous plastics can be ground to provide raw material for the remanufacture of plastic components. The use of steel fasteners will allow these to be magnetically separated from the ground material, allowing both plastic and steel to be recycled
• Using fasteners of similar materials as the main structure allows these to become part of the recycled material. For example, with the correct choice of coating on aluminium or steel fasteners, this can increase the overall recyclability of your design and product

Design for assembly

Our fastener Engineers can provide support and guidance when taking a design from prototype into serial production. Selecting a common drive system provides tool flexibility within the assembly line, but also enables remote maintenance or disassembly units to use universal tools particularly in hostile environments.

Alternative drive systems or drive sizes can be applied to fulfil Poka-Yoke requirements during assembly and assist with field repair and maintenance.

Product line optimisation and automation often requires modifications on existing fasteners. Our experience in diverse applications and markets allows us to support you in making the right design decisions.

Design for manufacture

Having our own manufacturing locations gives us a wealth of engineering knowledge and experience which customers can utilise.

Our Engineers work on refining tool design, production processes and efficiencies. Feasibility Engineers make sure we comply with customer’s drawings and requirements to help identify any areas of concern or risk. Drawing on our expertise in developing products for high-volume production, we can provide advice on design and specification suited for the most economical manufacture.

End-to-End design

Our engineering team forms an integral part within the TR structure, working closely with all other teams to ensure a smooth transition from ideation and concept creation to prototyping and serial production. Sustainable design development criteria also references the inherent and consistent process and product quality and its documentation, such as PPAP or other approvals.

Line walks

A line walk by our fastener Engineers applies a fresh pair of eyes approach to your product and assembly process. The advantage to both parties is that we get to see the product in situ and their mating components, giving us a better understanding of the application.

We work within the Six-Sigma philosophy and participate in Kaizen events. This allows the Engineering team to challenge the status quo which previously might not have been obvious. Line walks are highly successful in identifying potential improvements in the product life cycle cost, we have added value to numerous new projects with this process.

Tear down and functional analysis

Working with several OEM and Tiers across all sectors has led to numerous product and assembly improvements, giving great benefit to our customers. Our Engineers analyse the complete assembly, not just the fasteners, to understand the functionality and interaction between the various components. The additional benefits are upfront commercial savings, improvements in product integrity, often reducing the number of components and standardising driving methodology. A detailed report on the final analysis with cost benefits can also be produced to aid decision making.

Working globally with SolidWorks 3D design packages, TR can interpret most used CAD files e.g. CATPart, PRT, STEP and IGES as well as support with printed and electronic 2D files.

We routinely undertake tests to approve products as part of the PPAP process or for customer approval, including corrosive atmosphere testing to prove corrosion resistance, and tensile, proof stress and hardness tests to determine physical strength of fasteners. In addition, we can undertake standardised installation tests to establish thread forming or thread stripping torque, pull-out or pull-off strength, insertion force, or test these features in specific applications. This is particularly of use when testing new concept, new joining applications or when undertaking VA/VE.

At our facilities we have further eddy-current equipment to detect surface and sub-surface discontinuities in conductive materials, XRF spectrometer to analyse material composition in addition to the ability to undertake microscopy to assess the metallurgical integrity of products. We can test the products surface and measure this utilising the latest optical 3D technology which is being requested frequently.

In addition, we have a range of automated and manual, physical and optical metrology equipment to measure or determine dimensional compliance of samples or serial production.