Harcourt

HARCOURT THE ADAPTION TEAM OF AEROSPACE

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Harcourt Industrial President Rob Beardmore

Embracing change is the secret of Harcourt Industrial’s success. Having moved from continent to continent and switched industries, the company’s manufacturing engineering prowess is flying high as a Tier 1 supplier to the aerospace elite. President Rob Beardmore talked to Andy Probert about how tragedy, chance, innovation and determination have defined Harcourt’s business path.

erospace

Staying forever in a fixed position, par ticularly in business, can only mean one thing: demise. That’s why adap tion appears Harcourt Industrial’s trump card. From its name to the innovative tooling products it engineers, the company is for ever flexible to the trends and demands of the industry.

Present-day Harcourt is a Detroit, Michigan-based engineering innovation specialist dedicated to devising quality aerospace tooling and precision assembly solutions.

Harcourt’s technology is utilised by OEMs that dominate the aerospace sector. It offers tooling solutions designed to improve the manufacturing process when curing and machining composite parts, assem bling airframe structures and drilling in final assembly.

As President Rob Beardmore elaborated: “We empower clients to repurpose and reuse their tooling innovations and solu tions. With previous tooling designs, when they were no longer wanted, or a design change was needed, they have been inca pable of adaption, and scrapped. That’s why there’s a large sustainability ethos behind our products.”

Patented technologies

He explained: “In the automotive and aerospace industries, assembly jigs are large, custom, permanent structures that are costly to design and build. They are usu ally one of the highest non-reoccurring costs at the start of a manufacturing project.

“Manufacturers are often under increasing pressure to reduce non-reoccurring costs, reduce time-to-market of products, and improve the capacity and utilisation of their tooling.”

Harcourt’s flagship is BoxJoint, a unique, patented technology that offers an 80% reduction in hard tooling costs, 50% reduction in lead times, and a significant decrease in tooling modification costs and project delays.

The system is an arrangement of beams and joints, which forms a framework. There are no welds between the connecting pieces in the system. Instead, the parts are fixed together using the force of friction.

Harcourt HBOX units are used to join standard beams to form the framework of the jig. The framework is set to a loose tolerance facilitating a quick assembly process and using standard low-cost beams.

The final accurate interface between the jig and the component is achieved through adjustable Harcourt patented HFLAG and HSHIMBOX™ units. Laser metrology is used throughout the jig build process to measure and adjust the position of the jig beams, HSHIMBOXs, and HFLAGs.

“When industry changes, traditionally welded or fixed tools can take a long time to change for production outflows, heralding costly modifications. BoxJoint is adaptable, allowing you to change the final toolset detail in hours, not weeks and months.

That’s a key part of what Industry 4.0 is all about.”

Mr Beardmore reflected: “Harcourt was founded as a result of a simple observation: hundreds of thousands of commercial off-the-shelf products are readily available, but no solutions to real industry challenges. This mismatch led us to create Harcourt with the mission to develop solutions to help customers maximise their productivity.”

Defined by change

Harcourt’s path to the aerospace industry has been shaped by change several times over. While Harcourt has been in the US since 1999, its beginnings date to the l ate-1800s when William Beardmore and Co was a Scottish shipbuilding and engi neering corporation.

Over the decades, Harcourt-affiliated companies have anchored deep roots in the global manufacturing industry in markets such as automotive, defence, and shipbuilding.

Among some of the most important indus trial projects affiliated to Beardmore and Harcourt was the building of the HM R34 Airship, made famous for double-crossing the Atlantic in 1919; casting a 50-ton steel rudder for HMS Hood, a fabled Royal Navy battleship; and the creation of World War I battleship HMS Benbow.

The current Beardmore family were set tled in South Africa with numerous business interests, but the declining security situation there, plus the killing of a personal friend of the family, persuaded them to relocate to the US.

Harcourt began serving the automotive industry, but when the sector was mauled by the global 2008-09 financial crash, the company took a long hard look at itself.

Mr Beardmore said: “We analysed our customers and realised that the few doing very well had moved into the aerospace sector. So we became laser-focused on the industry, went after clients, and pre vailed. We can now look to major customers, including Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems.”

He said: “We are very fortunate that both moves – changing countries and indus t ries – worked out so well. That’s down to keeping flexible, innovative and willing to adapt as things happen.

“Our Harcourt brand is now a hallmark of quality in the aerospace tooling niche and BoxJoint has been highly successful.”

Demand for Harcourt’s solutions has prompted the company to grow, mainly with a sales and service force in the UK and France to service a European OEM client base that includes BAE and Airbus.

“For a long-time, the manufacturing techniques in aerospace were nothing short of World War 2 standards, but inno

vation is now moving rapidly through the sector,” Mr Beardmore remarked. “Whether this is one of the net effects of Covid, OEMs have shown a strong appetite for new manufacturing solutions, such as 3D printing, robotics, automation and the use of exotic materials.

“With our flexible and modular tooling background, we have been able to bring that to the fore and turn large assembly and tooling machines into a collection of standard parts, making it easier and sim pler for clients. That has shown drastic improvements in reducing lead times and getting their programmes built faster.”

The company’s service capabilities are also considered among the best in

the industry, having won Boeing Supplier Relations Awards four times in five years. “Harcourt Industrial is among the top 1% of Boeing’s supply chain, a tall order when you have 17,000 other suppliers to contend with,” he emphasised.

Win-win situations

Now experiencing more than 30% yearon-year growth for its tooling product line and up to 70% growth in modular tooling production due to the industry’s demands to move quickly, the task at Harcourt is to meet this demand.

Mr Beardmore said: “We’re very pleased with our progress, but it has been a good team effort. At every level of the business, we have the best experts in the industry. They create the best solutions that can often be a step change for a client and usually offer a competitive advantage.”

Demonstrating the versatility of Harcourt’s innovations, he said that a BoxJoint Holding Fixture was built within a week and delivered to a client within three days; a BoxJoint Trunnion tool was created in 1.5 weeks for another customer, while a complex BoxJoint Work Platform concept was designed within two weeks. All to the satisfaction of the recipients.

One company ambition is to invest and offer a manufacturing element from its UK base with a fleet of sophisticated CNC machines.

“We see many opportunities arising in the UK and Europe and want to take advantage of them as they arise,” con firmed Mr Beardmore. “A lot is happening

in the aerospace start-up ventures space that is exciting, and that’s an area we want to grow in.”

Another goal is to develop a purposebuilt facility within the Detroit area that will either double or triple in size com pared to Harcourt’s existing 30,000 sqft facility. The company remains committed to investing in modern, sophisticated CNC technology for milling, grinding and EDM. “These will help us bring more activities in-house, assert more control over our supply chain and keep delivery schedules on track,” he added.

Reflecting on events of the past couple of years, Mr Beardmore said: “Coming out of the pandemic has shown how fragile supply chains can be, and when something goes wrong, you can be easily damaged or dented. So having control over the supply chain is critical. That’s a big lesson learned.

“We are always working with customers closely, constantly analysing things from different angles: and being able to think differently will help us embrace innovation.

“These long-term relations, with suppliers and clients alike, are strong and built on transparency, trust and open communi cation. We learn from them, share their struggles and work side-by-side as their idea comes to fruition.”

Mr Beardmore added: “We have seen a lot of older experienced people retire, and while it’s a concern in the industry, it is an excellent opportunity for innovators to step up, provide the experience in their category, and fill that void. Those that do potentially have a promising longterm future.”

He concluded: “We foresee Harcourt being more integrated with our clients and essen tially becoming a partner or an extension of them as a tooling research and develop ment department. We’re in it together, so their success becomes our success. It’s a win-win situation for all.” n