Privately owned British precision pressings manufacturer Clamason Industries of Kingswinford, West Midlands, is manufacturing a top and bottom RFI shielding can to house the digital tuner integrated into the latest 42in and 50in plasma TV sets being made for the UK and European markets by Pioneer GB at Castleford, West Yorkshire. The cover of tin-plated and the base of zinc-plated mild steel are essential for picture quality to shield against radio frequency interference (RFI) and electromagnetic interference (EMI). Clamason delivers the RFI screening cans in pairs on a JIT basis to Pioneer GB, always filling a timed delivery slot on a specific day.

Meanwhile plasma screens are flown in from one of the Pioneer Corporation's three plants in Japan for the sets to be built at Castleford - at a daily rate of up to 1800 units, 75% of which are expected to consist of the state-of-the-art 42in model.

The highly successful British operation employs 400 workers in a 12,000 sq ft factory and runs three assembly lines working 24/7, as it strives to meet the fast-expanding demand from retail and business sectors for the Pioneer and NEC brands which it manufactures.

Pioneer came to Clamason Industries as an alternative UK supplier able to meet all the necessary quality requirements and standards when their previous supplier Sharp Precision Manufacturing (UK) shut down its stamping operation at Wrexham.

In fact the current wave of press shop closures across Britain has meant that business is booming for Clamason, to the extent that this 'lean manufacturer' has quoted for a record £20m worth of presswork, and enjoyed record sales, in the first quarter of 2006.

Clamason has been able to intervene and help household names like Pioneer in part because of its successful track record of having made the original BSkyB decoder box for Pace in the mid-1990's, for which major project it installed a special Chin Fong Worcester transfer press line from Taiwan.

That line of six presses located together provides rapid transfer of pressings between stations by pick-and-place robots with careful handling.

The system allows the manufacture of highly complex parts with no carry strip and the automatic insertion of other components and has the facility to reverse the burr side automatically within the process.

It is ideally suited to complex and intricate set top box applications where the maintenance of excellent surface quality is an essential consideration.

Above and beyond other home entertainments uses (such as DVR bases and Sky and Freeview boxes) for Thomson Broadcast UK and Panasonic, Clamason makes similar RFI shielding components for automotive multinationals.

Those pressings are engine control unit (ECU) enclosures for its first-tier customers Delphi Worldwide (on a variety of vehicles assembled in Europe, Asia and Central America), Motorola ACES (soon to become Continental AG) in North America and France, and Hitachi Europe (on the Nissan Micra and Renault Clio).

Furthermore, in order to ease JIT deliveries to the Central European factories both of automotive first-tier suppliers such as Delphi and TRW and of home entertainments OEMs such as Panasonic and Thomson, Clamason Industries has opened a 10,000 sq ft satellite plant with a £300,000 investment at Nitra, on the motorway network 80km east of Bratislava, capital of Slovakia.