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Introduction

Bumper nuts exciting?! Yes!

If they represent an achievement for you and your company and you are proud of the innovation they represent. TR Fastenings Ltd manufacture and supply (that means, buy and sell-on to other companies) all sorts of fastenings: nuts and bolts, rivets and specialist devices for fixing almost anything to anything. In high volume production getting the right fastener matters, for it can bring many benefits:

• more reliable quality of manufacture with fewer failed products

• cost savings in production

• better durability (G) of the product and

• ease of access for maintenance if needed.

In the case of this particular bumper nut (only half the fastener) some significant innovation was called for with important environmental consequences.


A Hydro Raufoss aluminium bumper with, inset, TR's aluminium bumper nut.

The company is a supplier to original equipment manufacturers OEMs (G)

and their sub-contractors, so it is a 'business to business' company which does not sell direct to consumers. The bumper nut business came from BMW through their sub-contractor Hydro Raufoss, a Norwegian bumper supply company which found itself unable to obtain a suitable fastener. BMW required the nut to be made from aluminium like the bumper without compromising its performance, eg strength. BMW are developing techniques to ensure that when their cars come to the end of their life they can efficiently strip them down and recycle as much of the materials as possible.

       Task 1 - Manufacturing and pollution

For efficiency in assembling cars, the nuts are fixed to the bumper in advance - when it is manufactured by the sub-contractor. At the car assembly plant the bumper can then be bolted directly to the car, in one process.

To recycle the bumpers - made of a large amount of aluminium - either the nuts must be aluminium too and stay with the bumpers or they must be stripped off in a separate process.

Removing them is expensive (in the time it might take) with many potential difficulties caused by corroded or distorted old bumpers. So it was decided that the usual steel bumper nuts could not be used and suitable aluminium ones had to be found. However, no automotive company had used aluminium bumper nuts before, after all, most bumpers used to be steel and are now made of plastics.

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