Castrol’s contract helps drive down costs
May 1st 2005

Adwest Engineering makes manual and power assisted steering racks and gears for the European OEM automotive industry. Its machine shop near Reading houses more than 300 CNC, NC and manual machines as well as 16 dedicated test machines.

When the decision was taken to bring fluid management in-house, it invited four companies to tender for the coolant supply contract and Castrol was selected.

David Miles, Adwest health and safety manager, says that Castrol was not the cheapest, but was chosen because he and plant director, Derek Batton, were confident the company had the products, experience and technical expertise to support its in-house team.

An account manager visits regularly to check stock levels and any other issues with the machine shop team leader. Technical queries are dealt with over the phone and, to help monitor fluid use, Castrol is providing a database and training to enable Adwest to record consumption and any maintenance carried out.

Castrol has also been involved in a number of cost saving exercises, including recycling, which had been neglected by the previous supplier.

Castrol recommended installing a filtration system that enables Adwest to recycle fluids in-house.

David Miles says that the new arrangement has produced cost savings of 25 to 30%, and he now spends less time dealing with fluid management issues.

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