Put the brakes on inefficiency

摘要

Established in 1983 by engineer and sports car racer John Moore, Alcon Components initially made brakes for Audi Sport's Group B Quattro rally cars. Today, the Tamworth company provides braking solutions such as discs, callipers, cylinders, valves, balance bars, pedal boxes, clutches and much more for the top echelons of motorsport and specialist markets. It is this reputation in motorsport that has led the company to Open Mind and its hyperMILL CAM software Icon Components designs, manufactures and supplies braking solutions to some of the world's most prestigious brands that include Audi, Bentley, Brabus and Jaguar Land Rover. The company has products that can be found in anything as diverse as the extreme 900bhp/tonne Ariel Atom 500 and the 225mph Noble M600 through to military vehicles, armoured SUV's and anything in-between. To cope with the capacity demands of up to 500 discs a week, Alcon has recently invested in three new Doosan vertical turning centres for its disc machining line, which is yielding a 30 to 40 per cent cycle time improvement.