Member Article

Brose celebrates 30 years in Coventry with production milestone

Brose, a leading tier 1 automotive supplier, has celebrated 30 years of production in the UK by producing its two millionth seat structure in a year.

The company, which employs 900 people across its two plants in Coventry, announced the manufacturing milestone during the official presentation of its Queen’s Award for Enterprise by Timothy Cox, Lord-Lieutenant of Warwickshire.

Staff, local dignitaries and Maximilian Stoschek, the great grandson of company founder Max Brose, were on hand to see current Managing Director Juergen Zahl accept the accolade that reflected a major spike in export sales to customers in China, France, Spain and Brazil.

It marks what has been a significant period of expansion for the firm who have focused on providing technology-based solutions, dedicated customer facing teams and improving delivery and manufacturing performance.

“We are very passionate about our Coventry facilities and the Queen’s Award is the pinnacle of the journey we have been on for the last 30 years,” explained Juergen Zahl.

“Many lows have been overcome, many highs have been achieved and today we are currently one of the best manufacturing locations in the Brose Group and a strategic supplier of window regulators and seat structures to Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan and Toyota.

“This has only been possible thanks to two factors. Firstly, the commitment of Brose’s senior management team to grow our UK location has seen more than £100m invested since 2012 in the factory extension and the introduction of the state-of-the-art paint plant that gives us greater control of the seat coating process.”

He continued: “The second factor and, in my opinion the most important, is the Brose staff that work across our two plants in Coventry. Their hard work, commitment and innovation has been crucial to our success.”

Brose acquired Sheridan Engineering in 1988, making Coventry its first international plant outside of Germany.

Initially, the company was producing locks, latches, hinges and window regulators for Ford, Peugeot, Jaguar and Rover and was based in a collection of industry units on Durbar Avenue.

Today, it employs 900 people and is located in two high performing manufacturing facilities, producing 2 million seat structures and more than 4.6 million window regulators every year, supplying 17 different car models across 20 global plants. Zahl continued: “We have had a really strong five years, bouncing back from the global recession to achieve £289m in sales in the last financial year.”

Maximilian Stoschek added his support: “Coventry is very special to me, as during my early years in the company, I spent several months there as part of my training.“To receive the Queen’s Award for Enterprise is such an historic achievement for our plants here, but also holds great significance for the Brose Group. Our Headquarters and my home is in Coburg, where The Queen’s great great grandfather, Prince Albert, was born and raised. Thus we have our own particular link to the British Royal Family.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Russ Cockburn .