To the highest standard
SMP Europe recently pulled back the curtain, and Aftermarket was there to learn more about all the work that goes into producing all those parts
Published: 05 May, 2023
More often than not within the pages of Aftermarket, we will refer to the fact that the internal make-up of vehicles has changed greatly in recent years, and that the shift towards electrification is accelerating the process further. No one knows this more than companies making parts, be they OE, Tier One or going straight into the aftermarket.
Wanting to show the world more about the work that go into producing the EGR valves, air mass meters, exhaust pressure sensors and many other parts that they make, SMP Europe recently invited the press to take a peek inside their UK engineering centre in Nottinghamshire in order to shed some light on how their products go from an idea to being a physical item in the hand. With manufacturing taking place both at home and in Torun, Poland, the primary purpose for touring the UK site was to find out how the team take products from idea to prototype at as rapid a pace as is practical, get them tested and then get them into full production.
The company chose a good time to open the doors too, particularly when looking towards the EV side. With electric cars of all types becoming more common, garages are starting to think about the need to get parts, and realising that it is not easy. SMP Europe are already thinking in this direction, and they have even put in an EV garage on site for testing on the vehicle itself, but we are getting ahead of ourselves here. We will come to that later.
Tour
The tour began in the engineering department, where the various parts are designed, taking in the reality of the hardware itself – the key physical elements, and the firmware side, which many people would refer to as software. With many ideas on parts that could be produced by the company coming from the sales team that is out talking to the factors and garages, the first step is putting together the building blocks. Once the team have decided that a product will be both viable and profitable, they embark on their work towards producing a part. The part itself is designed just a desk away from where the firmware is written from scratch to do the job it needs to do. To enable this to happen, production designers and mechanical engineering designers sit side-by-side. On one side of the room, you have programming and circuits being designed, then on the other you have the casings being put together in CAD programmes where potential parts can be visualised and designed in 3D.
With just a connecting door to traverse, our next stop took us through to a clean workshop, where thanks to investment in 3D printing, the team are able to swiftly move from the design stage to a point where they can have an early prototype in their hands, which they can then begin to perform physical tests on, to see if what they have come up with is viable. From here we moved onto the machine room where circuit boards drawn by the human staff just a few metres away can be constructed by robots, and then finished via drying in a 12-stage oven. We then stepped through to the Validation Test Laboratory. “This is one of the most important areas in the factory,” said Engineering Manager John Wass, as it is where the team find out if what they are making actually works. This includes three thermal cycle ovens where products can be put through the stresses that both very low and very high temperatures will inflict. If that’s not tough enough, there is also a thermal shock chamber, and a pair of hot soak ovens a salt spray machine and an electromagnetic test unit, built especially for the company.
One of the last parts of the process is on-vehicle testing, and with this in mind we found ourselves in the on-site garage. The area is split between an internal combustion engine vehicle section and an EV area and even has a jukebox sourced from the local pub so the team have music while they work. Here they are able to try the parts in a real-world setting, with real-world stresses and strains as the parts would experience on the vehicle. Once a part has survived and successfully passed the prototype phase, they will ultimately end up in production, and eventually in real garages, with real mechanics. Once a part works, it can be put into production, and on the factory floor, parts are constructed, with many, such as air mass meters each being set, one-by-one. “Individual calibration is the only way,” John pointed out. “We have tried to find a way to set them all en masse, but there is no way of doing it.” Remember that when you order one in.
Electrification
This is a tried-and-tested process that works well for the company, which in the last year alone has introduced a host of parts including ignition leads, NOx sensors, fuel vapour valves (FVVs) and much more. However, the company was keen to share its move towards providing EV parts for its customers.
It’s not an easy jump though. As SMP Europe Marketing Director Martin Turner observed, while they can get a product for an internal combustion engine vehicle from idea to production in around six to 12 months, with EV parts the situation is not quite the same: “At the moment, it is relatively early days. From an R&D side, we need more information on what components are failing.” As well as identifying parts that may need to be produced by SMP Europe, the team is working with experts in the EV field, such as garages in the HEVRA network, and notable names such as Matt Cleevely from Cleevely Garage, who are able to help them source hard-to-obtain donor parts for research. Once they have gotten hold of the parts and are able to study them, they can begin the process we have described here.
Of course, while parts from across the gamut of the EV parc, ranging from the humble Renault Zoe to the proprietorially data-obtuse output of Tesla are often drivetrain or even vehicle-specific, there is still a lot of cross-pollination from traditional internal combustion engine vehicles. Martin said: “We do have, as part of our core ranges, parts that are common across both ICE vehicles and electric as well, like wheel speed sensors and temperature sensors. It's an ongoing project that our product management team are focusing on to maximise that offering as much as possible. We want to make sure that the garages and factors feel confident that if they have an electric vehicle come through, that they're able to offer the parts that they need. This is where they're trying to identify potential needs for the market and create the product to fit that need.”
Martin concluded: “It is a quite complicated process, but the message we want to get out to market is that that development is happening.”
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- Dance the night away
The automotive aftermarket does rely to a significant extent on the manufacturing capability in the region. Even if many products are made outside the EU and UK, the aftermarket parts supply generally flows in a better way, especially if the required parts are used in a vehicle built in the region, or were fitted to previous models also built in the region. It is the bench mark.
For importers without this benefit, it is the standard by which they are judged. If the manufacturing ceases in the region (UK and EU27), parts supply will be more difficult and the pressure to deliver/cost control will be undermined.
Europe, excess capacity and rising costs
How is it being undermined though, and by whom? Not that I want to point fingers, but let’s start with former Prime Minister Theresa May who enshrined in law ‘Net Zero by 2050’ with no cost/benefit analysis or plan. Then there is the EU Commission, the political elite whose decisions ran our legal system. So much for politics – what has this got to do with vehicles?
Well, we find ourselves sharing with the EU27:
• Vehicle Whole Type Approval, which the UK so far is not leaving. This allows vehicle manufacturers and importers to minimise costs by standardising performance criteria, setting aside that UK and Eire drive on ‘the other’ side of the road.
• The aim to eliminate all internal combustion powered new cars and commercial vehicles from 2035 regardless of MHEV, HEV or PHEV assistance. The UK seek to eliminate pure internal combustion powertrain new vehicle from 2030 onwards in addition.
As soon as all routes to keep internal combustion production alive in the EU27 and the UK became blocked, component manufacturers either moved their operations out of the region or simply closed factories. This has been underway since 2019. The component supplier activity has expanded in electric powertrain technologies, but there is a net loss of employment. The inevitable next stage has arrived, and Europe is going to have mass closures of automotive plants. Let’s look at one vehicle manufacturer who is convulsing in much the same way as the rest.
Ford – A long history in Europe
Ford first started European manufacturing in what is now Eire, before migrating to the UK and Germany. The plant at Dagenham opened in 1919, and the Cologne plant opened in 1931, which historically – much like GM’s Russelsheim plant – was one of the most expensive to operate but also had the best quality. By the early 1990s Ford were forced to boost the plant capacity with its cheapest vehicle line, Fiesta, because Scorpio in spite of many facelifts had finally died. Quite simply fashion had moved on and the type of large cars built across Europe by non-premium brands were no longer viable. Why do this? Ford Werke was faced with paying a huge amount of cash to lay off the Cologne plant workers, or get them to build vehicles. The Fiesta was in demand, extra capacity was needed, and the maths kind-of worked. However, as with much of Germany, labour rates were high and did not fall. The writing was on the wall.
Ford steps out in 2023
In a familiar pattern for Ford, it made a barrage of announcements. First up, the planned in-depth marriage with Volkswagen Group would be instead a fling, with just two products to appear on the MEB platform. Next up, having announced years ago the that Mondeo would cease and not be replaced, came this:
• Fiesta: Stopped in June 2023, no replacement
• Focus: Stopped in 2025, no replacement, Saarloius plant to be closed
• S-Max and Galaxy: Stopped in April 2023, no replacements
• Transit Courier: (a van version of the now ceased B-Max) – No replacement, and the Romania plant sold to Ford partner Otosan to build yet more Transits
The main product development centre for Fiesta and Focus is Merkenich, next door to the Cologne plant. This will lose 1,700 product engineering jobs and 600 admin jobs. Meanwhile the UK engineering centre at Dunton will lose 1,000 product engineering jobs and 300 admin roles. A further 200 product engineering and admin jobs will be lost across the Ford of Europe operation beyond Germany and the UK. A total of 3,800 job losses, which will impact the associated supplier business too. This is a massive error.
The Saarlouis plant, which has 15 bidders including BYD, may yet lose all 4,600 jobs. Anyone working at the Cologne plant not on the BEV programme which uses the Volkswagen Group MEB electric powertrain, will also lose their jobs. More cuts will follow.
Struggling with overhead, costs and a new vision
Amid this chaos, the view from Dearborn is clear; Ford of Europe will disappear and they plan to import/ build more ‘upscale’ vehicles. Ford NAO think they can come to Europe with the Bronco, and clean up. After all, they did used to own Land Rover so think they know many things. Possibly they do, but not about this market. The word used by Dearborn is ‘Americanise’. Hell-yeah. Ford, the Captain Sensible of the Big Three U.S automakers, is now also taking the pills that led to GM leaving the European market.
Concentrating on BEVs is politically expedient, but unless costs fall significantly sales will remain stubbornly small. Sure, the tax penalties for making vehicles with any sort of internal combustion engine hurts, but the profitability per unit is way, way ahead of BEVs which are mainly break-even. Then we come to vehicles engineered primarily for the North American market, which have always had a small but dedicated following in Europe: Again, just how is this supposed to go from niche to volume sales with zero support?
Finally, the fashion bit. Ford in Europe were for many decades very, very good at reading trends, but annoyingly had limited success except in the UK. For some decades they have been fumbling about, producing great vehicles in a sea of outstanding vehicles. The idea they want to go ‘SUV only’ is very, very late - Nissan did that more than 10 years ago. Where will Ford be as the fashion swings around to lower riding vehicles? Yessiree, nowhere.
Ford North America builds a smaller pick up called Maverick which had huge market take-up, based on Escape and which also lends its platform to the Bronco Sport, which is nothing like a full USA scale Bronco. In effect Bronco Sport is related to Bronco in the same way Land Rover Discovery Sport owes nothing to Discovery No5. Maverick may not ‘be dancing with ladies that sway’, but it is dancing out of the USA showrooms. Is Ford promoting this here? Hell, no.
The 2022 results were sobering. Reasonable turn over, a US$ 2 billion loss and ‘disappointment’. The above plans will add to the one-off costs for 2023, and if any of the plan does not work, including a return to F1 by 2026, Ford will effectively vacate the European market. Ford is not alone. The EU Commission and European Parliament have only just realized what they have done, when it is already too late. Of course, there is no admission of fault, nor change in policy.
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