Henton Engineering

Henton Engineering Ltd specialises in the engineering, machining and testing of large ring-shaped components used in aircraft and marine engines and on satellites and spacecraft.  Functionality, reliability and weight are key factors for this company, which deals with a comprehensive array of multi-axis machine tools to provide a complete engineering service from assistance with design and production, the sourcing of raw material and the development of processes, through to final assembly and testing.

As Managing Director, David Halliday (who is responsible for a turnover of £8 million and a team of 70 people) recognised the need for alignment with major customers and this is what prompted a move to implement NX CAD/CAM software from Siemens PLM.

Early in 2011, Henton Engineering implemented NX 7.5; this investment in NX CAD Software soon showed results as EADS/Astrium awarded Henton Engineering with a £250,000 contract. According to Halliday, this success was entirely due to Henton Engineering’s new CAD/CAM capability, acquired under guidance from TEAM Engineering.

‘We would never have been able to execute this contract without the support of Siemens PLM and the guys from TEAM Engineering.’

The decision to use TEAM was easy. Halliday explains, ‘from the early stages, TEAM’s technical specialists were very impressive in the way that they demonstrated the software, which gave our engineers confidence that they knew what they were doing.

‘Their training was an excellent introduction to the software – and the actual implementation was extremely slick.

‘However, the number one reason for selecting TEAM Engineering and NX was that our account manager developed a very strong relationship with us, spending two months helping to build a business case that would justify the investment. That was the key to convincing the board that we needed to buy a serious software package like NX.’

The move to NX means that Henton Engineering has fulfilled a long-term aim to align more closely with its key customers so that it can increase its responsiveness to them and strengthen their positioning in the market for the next few years. Halliday enthuses, ‘implementing NX has changed the mindset of our engineers; we can now take on jobs that we could not have considered before.

‘We are already working with customers on new product development through concurrent engineering and importing their CAD files to work on parts. I anticipate that Henton Engineering will be doubling its NX seats over the next few years.’