TRW’s S&S facility celebrates its third birthday

Name: TRW Senai manufacturing plant
Location: Johor Bahru, Malaysia Singapore border
Manufactures: steering & suspension (S&S) product
Established: 2007 

Seven years after introducing a European IAM OE quality S&S programme, the first parts were manufactured at TRW’s facility in Johor Bahru. Now, celebrating its third birthday, we talk to plant manager, Francis Hor. 

“We opened with four strategic priorities: reduce production costs; enhance in-house manufacturing capability; levy control back to TRW and produce 100 per cent of demand.

Business is flourishing. We supply markets in Europe, Asia Pacific and South America.

In August 2010 we achieved record production volumes of 171k,” Francis said.

“We operate four assembly lines for ball joints and one for track control arms. In 2011 we will introduce axial rods and in 2012 stabilizer links. Next year, we will begin brake pad assembly.

“Employee rates rise each year, boosting the local economy. We work five days a week on a two-shift basis.

“Our focus is quality. We test: performance; axial elasticity; radial elasticity; endurance; rotational and articulation toque. Recent introductions include: a contour graph machine to inspect parts geometry; a ‘faro arm’ to reverse engineer and perform 3D inspections and an environment simulation test machine measuring dust cover endurance,” Francis added. 

 TRW’s Senai plant is another example of our investment into the best quality production and testing processes for our parts.