Brookhouse has significantly increased its in-house design capacity with the addition of four more Catia seats at its Darwen manufacturing site. The extra design capability has been created to help the company meet increasing demands from the aerospace sector for composites mould tooling. In terms of volume, Brookhouse is Europe's leading independent supplier of mould tooling and its totally self-sufficient, multi-disciplined design department offers extensive experience and expertise in the production of 2D and 3D computer-aided designs using advanced software packages.

It has particular experience in the application of Catia, the preferred aerospace software, and the new seats comprise two Catia V4.2.4 and two Catia 5.14 seats, increasing the number of in-house Catia seats to twelve.

In addition, the company can call on more than 30 Catia contract design engineers, working off site.

The design department uses the latest Sun operating systems with a Fast Transfer Protocol server and high quality translation software packages.

It can also send and receive data by CD, tape and e-mail and has the ability to transfer data internally via electronic links to shop-floor machining centres.

The increase in design capacity continues a programme of focused capital investment, covering all aspects of Brookhouse's business from design and production of tooling to manufacture, assembly and finishing of composite components.

It also complements the significant investments that the company has made in quality, people and process technology which will help Brookhouse to maintain its dedicated concentration on its core aerospace business to provide its customers with innovative and cost-efficient solutions to composites problems.