Innovative solutions for chassis systems
and structural assemblies
Welcome to the world
A leading global engineering group, with over 250 years heritage
of quality and innovation, operating in more than 30 countries.
Technology and engineering from GKN is at the heart of the vehicles and aircraft produced by the
world's leading automotive, off highway, defence and aerospace manufacturers. More than 40,000
people work in GKN companies and joint ventures in more than 30 countries.
“Every day we harness our considerable technology and manufacturing resources to supply the highest
quality systems, structures, components and services.”
GKN operate in four key business areas:
GKN Automotive
GKN Land Systems
GKN Aerospace
GKN Powder Metallurgy
Supplying driveshafts,
geared components, torque
management devices to
vehicle manufacturers in
the global car and light
vehicle markets.
Design, manufacture and
supply wheels, driveline
products, tractor
attachment systems,
clutches, gearboxes,
structural assemblies and
chassis systems for the
mining, agricultural,
construction, automotive,
defence, rail and industrial
machinery markets.
Activities are concentrated
on the production of
airframe and engine
structures, components and
assemblies for both military
and civil aerospace markets.
Producing powdered metal
and sintered components
for automotive and other
industrial customers.
Power Management
Wheels & Structures
Aftermarket & Services
GKN Land Systems comprises three specialist businesses:
Power Management - world leader in the design, manufacture and supply of PTO driveshaft, drive line components,
gearboxes, clutches and tractor attachment systems for the global off highway markets.
Wheels & Structures - world leader in design, development and manufacture of wheels for off highway applications
and automotive wheels in Asia, and pressed steel, structural assemblies, modules and chassis systems for the
automotive, off highway, defence and rail sectors.
Aftermarket & Services - a global aftermarket distribution and service business serving the automotive and off highway
industry.
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d of GKN
GKN Structures – engineering excellence and high performance
GKN Land Systems is renowned for engineering excellence and
has expanded its global presence significantly over recent years
with manufacturing, service and distribution facilities worldwide.
Whilst GKN Structures’ growing range of non automotive customers
benefit from the automotive derived facilities, such as site
compliance to TS16949 and safe launch procedures for all new work.
Within the GKN Land Systems group, GKN Structures is a specialist
chassis and sub assembly supplier to a number of key sectors
including automotive, off highway and defence. Automotive
customers include Land Rover, Toyota, Ford, Bentley, Aston Martin
and Leyland Truck.
GKN Structures is investing heavily in its Telford Headquarters
facilities with a new shotblast, top coat, large area laser and
press brake. This investment will not only complement our
existing extensive facilities, but also ensure that we maintain our
leading role and reputation for engineering excellence,
innovation and high performance.
Rockford
Nagbøl
Telford
Armstrong, Estherville
Ribemont
Woodridge: PM, W&S
Wichita
Auburn Hills
Lohmar
Carcastillo
Sohland
Offenbach
Bruneck
Carpenedolo
Tokyo
Liuzhou
GKN Land Systems
Manufacturing locations:
Wheels & Structures
Power Management
Multi-business
Porto Alegre
Montevideo
AMS Remanufacturing
Engineering centres:
Auburn Hills & Offenbach
Bruneck
Lohmar
Rockford
Carpenedolo
Woodridge
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Your automotive and non autom
Automotive modules and systems
GKN Structures has built an outstanding reputation for excellence and reliability
in the design, development and manufacture of automotive chassis, suspension,
body and structural systems for the major automotive OEMs including Land
Rover, Toyota, Ford, Bentley, Aston Martin and Leyland Truck.
Similarly, we have extensive expertise in delivering complete modular systems in
sequence directly to a customers’ production line:
Full ladder frame chassis
Cross members and suspension arms
Front and rear suspension components
Complex sub-frames for high and low volume applications
Process capabilities
Multi stage press lines
Blanking line
Robotic welding
CMM/Faro/laser inspection
Access to specialist pressing
technologies
E-coat paint process
Full TS16949 compliance
Control arms
Rear non driven axles
Automotive 4x4 Ladder Chassis Frame
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motive partner
Non automotive lower volume processing
Non automotive customers are able to take advantage of the automotive derived
high quality facilities, these include automotive standard process control and full
TS16949 compliance across our entire site.
Further, site expertise in automation for both press and robotic welding means we
are equipped to apply this technology to your work.
With our substantial investment in lower volume processing equipment including
laser, press brake and paint finishing, together with our commitment to lean
manufacturing excellence, GKN Structures is ideally placed to support and
successfully exploit opportunities to improve efficiency through value engineering
and value added activities.
Laser cutting
Up to 4 x 2
Press brake
4.2 Mtrs 400 tonnes
Robotic welding
Resistance, spot and projection
In particular, our E-coat paint process is capable of treating a wide range
of components from small car speaker grilles right up to full chassis.
This environmentally friendly process ensures both high corrosion resistance
and excellent surface finish suitable for top coating where required.
Arc, Mig and Tig
Dedicated robotic cells and flow
Comprehensive prototype facility
Flexible robot cell developments
Manual welding
Agricultural Vehicle Ladder Chassis Frame
Full in-house training facility
High number of coded welders
Shotblast
Booth capable of full chassis blasting
E-coat processing
5.8m x 1.5m x height 2m
Top coat
Wet coat and powder coat processing
up to full chassis
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Aluminium Structures
Squeezeforming
The drive towards weight reduction and increasingly stringent emissions
creates a wide range of engineering opportunities for aluminium technologies.
GKN Structures is committed to developing new components for a wide range of
target sectors including defence, automotive, motor sport and rail.
Aluminium Structures employs a unique Squeezeforming process, with closely
controlled cooling and solidification of molten aluminium under pressure, giving
excellent mechanical properties.
This process enables the use of a wide range of heat-treatable alloys to give forged
material properties and cast-in inserts for locally improved wear resistance or strength.
As an example of our high performance aluminium engineering technology,
Aluminium Structures has been supplying road wheels for the Warrior armoured
personnel carrier for over 15 years, offering a 50% weight saving over an equivalent
steel wheel.
Tracked Military Vehicle Wheel
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Aluminium processing
Direct casting process
High strength, low weight products
Low porosity, fine microstructure
Heat-treatable, weldable alloys
Proven in service for over 15 years
Dedicated, highly-skilled Engineering
& Development team
E-coat world class paint
Customers today demand both higher quality and durability from the products
they buy. Not only do they expect these products to perform well, but they want
the finish to look good and resist corrosion for a much longer period of time.
The E-coat world class paint process offered by GKN Structures is designed
to do just that.
Cathodic epoxy electro-coat is designed to be compatible with a wide range
of liquid and powder top coat materials and, in addition, the excellent surface
finish can allow the E-coat to be applied as a single coat where UV resistance
is not required.
Processing E-coat
Cathodic epoxy electro deposition
coating
17 tank process, pre-treatment,
electro-coat, post rinse and bake oven
Tank size: length 5.8m x width up to
1.5m x height 2m. Pre-treatment
including phosphate coating
Suitable as base coat for A class
panels
Salt spray resistance testing up 1000
hours against customer specifications
Advantages
Environmentally friendly: water based
paint system
Corrosion protection: the paint film
is intrinsically bonded with the base
metal product
Electro-deposition allows coating
of intricate and hard to reach areas
of parts
Transfer efficiencies of better than
95% resulting in reduced paint waste
Fewer defects: E-coat gives a better
quality product with an even film build
During baking, the E-coat will not sag
nor will the vapours cause the paint
to wash off
Highly repeatable process
E-Coated Control Arm
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From concept and design to pro
Design, development and testing
GKN Structures has proven capability to support a model program from concept
to production, assuring client confidentiality at all times.
Design
A comprehensive suite of CAD analysis tools are used, together with value
engineering and competitive benchmarking, to ensure performance targets
are met at minimum cost and weight.
Design capability from concept to
production, finite element analysis
used to optimise components
With its broad based skills and expertise in automotive, defence and rail
markets, GKN Structures offers customers in all sectors a highly developed
and professional design, development and testing capability along side its
firm commitment to lean excellence.
CAD systems include CATIA / SDRC
IDEAS / Pro Eng
FSS status since 1997
Testing
Single axis cyclic
Static stiffness/strength
Multi-axis cyclic
GKN Structures Design & Test Facility
Full vehicle/full axle
Full corner testing on 150 t
seismic mass
Remote Parameter Control (RPC)
Road load data acquisition on
customer vehicles
Road simulation
Road load data analysis. Component
strain data analysis. Access to test
track real life conditions
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World class quality
As you would expect from a business that embraces excellence and innovation,
quality assurance is one of the cornerstones of GKN Structures’ philosophy.
The process begins in quality planning simultaneously with engineering, further
supported by full feasibility analysis and continues through process control where
we implement a range of tests and checks.
Testing and inspection
Multi axis CMM machines up to
5 x 3.5
Faro arm inspection
These checks include CMM inspection, macro weld tests, ultrasonic
weld inspection and, for our paint process, salt spray resistance testing.
TS16949 - Site Compliance
ISO9001
ISO14001
OHSAS18001
GKN is certified to ISO14001 and is committed to protecting the environment
in which we live and work.
Destructive testing, Macro Etch
Non destructive testing, ultrasonic
weld test
Safe launch procedure
State of the art laser inspection for
high volumes
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Lean enterprise
Case study
Continuous Improvement - The Land Rover Defender Chassis
Before 2009 assembling the Land Rover Defender was almost entirely a manual operation;
some sub assembly automation had taken place prior to 2009, but the bulk remained manual
and extremely labour intensive.
The Defender value stream historically used a large
manufacturing footprint, in doing so the cost of heating
and lighting was not optimised, work in progress was
high and the working environment was not ideal.
All Defender chassis are now robot welded, with positive
feedback from our customer on the improved reliability
and quality.
The costs of bringing in outside contractors to design,
install, commission and automate a system for final
assembly was deemed prohibitive, so the creativity and
skills of our in house resources were put to good effect.
GKN Structures already had a high level of automation
for handling and welding, so the drive to implement
change was already in the business.
…Land Rover benefited
from the quality and
reliability improvements
this project provided.
In January 2009 a maintenance and production
team from GKN Telford began designing and then
constructing the new assembly line, including all
robotic welding equipment software and programs.
To reduce obsolescence costs, production robotic cells
were refurbished into a prototype assembly and
welding cell.
…the creativity and skills
of our in house resources
were put to good effect.
The main challenge of the new installation for the in
house team was that the new cell needed to be installed
on the existing site, without disrupting the supply of
chassis to Land Rover.
To eliminate some of the risk, the line was put through
mass production trials in advance of the line change in
August 2009. Working to a strict deadline, the final phase
of this project was completed by the removal of the old
line and the installation and commissioning of the new
automated facility during a two week shutdown in 2009.
The benefits of such a major project were numerous,
not least a reduction of floor space by 60% which, in turn,
meant a huge reduction in heating and lighting costs.
Most importantly in all of this, our customer Land Rover
benefited from the quality and reliability improvements
this project provided. Our operators benefited from a
significant enhancement to their working environment.
Today, our Telford plant has more than 200 robots on
site involved in handling and welding in the various
value streams.
What started out as a continuous improvement study,
turned into a global GKN award for innovation based
on the automation of the final welding process here
at GKN Structures.
GKN
Vision
Production
Excellence
Business
Process
Excellence
People Excellence
Business Excellence
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GKN Structures Headquarters
PO Box 85
Hadley Castle Works
Telford TF1 6TE
United Kingdom
© GKN Land Systems 10/11 1M
www.iconnet.co.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 1952 428053
www.gknlandsystems.com