A refreshing and
innovative approach
We believe you will find our way of working refreshing and very supportive. We try to give our customers a real advantage over their competitors by using our expertise on their behalf to develop the most cost effective, reliable parts possible.
Creative
Our broad industrial involvement gives our engineers extensive experience in solving diverse problems across a range of requirements and materials and this proves very valuable when helping customer’s to meet the functional requirement of parts they are developing. While you may be trying to solve a sealing or fitting problem on your particular product, they have often solved very similar problems in other applications, products or sectors.
Teamwork
We work in cross disciplined teams and bring the best ideas together to gain the maximum advantage for customers. We do not charge for this valuable service which is part of our customer support programme.
Focused
Our focus is on delivering solutions that are cost effective, easy to manufacture and trouble free in operation. The design of the processes is as important as the design of the product. Too often some detail on the drawing board adds substantially to cost e.g. by limiting tooling split line options or to quality e.g. by creating tolerance or finishing uncertainties. The designer will often be unaware and a simple change such as adding or removing a radius can make all the difference.
Costs
We manufacture the majority of products (80%) at our own very cost effective UK factory . We also have partners in the Far East, most of whom we have dealt since the mid 1990’s. These are carefully developed partners with full quality approvals and appropriate technical resources and whom we visit on a regular basis. These partners are used where the technology and materials are straightforward and cost is the predominant factor or they are specialists in the particular product sector. The use of these partners is always with the full awareness of our customers. It ensures that we can always offer you the most competitive package of parts on a worldwide basis. Our sophisticated laboratory equipment allows us to ensure materials supplied by partners match the required specification.
Long term Partnership approach
In today’s fast changing markets, companies need a competitive edge more than ever in order to thrive. The key to success lies in bringing well-designed, highly reliable products to the market more quickly than the competition. To achieve this, companies must work closely with their suppliers, drawing on their expertise to achieve the most cost-effective, easily manufactured designs. They must make use of the most up-to-date technology. They need advice on the most suitable materials, on maximising component functions to get the best cost/performance ratio and on building in quality to achieve reliable, low cost manufacture. They must have support to prototype and test designs and get finished parts into production as quickly as possible.
At Harboro, our main aim is to support you in such ventures. Our success lies in your success - we have no products of our own to rely on.
But this is only the start of partnership. Throughout a product’s life there must be regular reviews to reduce costs and to improve future designs. Small modifications can often produce further savings in both the manufacture of the component and on customers’ assembly lines. Reviews should look closely at manufacturing data to seek areas where costs can be reduced, production simplified and quality and reliability increased.
Partnership is two sided. Both partners need to understand each other’s needs and aspirations. Relationships must be built which instil confidence and trust on both sides and both must see their future in the relationship. Harboro operates an open book policy with these partners.
It is our aim to seek and develop such partners.