Coventry-based Brown and Hawthorne Engineering Ltd, a sub-contract CNC machinist, has started making tooling parts to allow a well-known car manufacturer and also a supplier and manufacturer of racing and road vehicle parts, to produce ventilators for the NHS and help in the fight against COVID-19.
 
The company, established in 1955, has 12 employees, over 15 machines and manufactures a wide range of parts mainly for the motorsport industry, supplying high-precision, complex components in a variety of materials.

It can undertake five-, four- and three-axis machining and has CNC turning, cylindrical and surface grinding capabilities.

Brown and Hawthorne has been a customer of Suffolk-based Master Fluid Solutions (www.masterfluidsolutions.com) for over ten years.

Although they only started making the tooling parts for ventilators on Wednesday last week, it has already made 132 individual parts — the metal-working fluid being used to create the tooling parts is TRIM E905.

Vicki Walls, Brown and Hawthorne managing director, said: “I heard on the radio that manufacturing companies were being asked to register on the UK Government web site if they were interested in helping to produce ventilators and components, so I made the decision to register. 

“Two of our existing customers then contacted us to say that they were starting to manufacture ventilators to help with the coronavirus pandemic.
 
“Straight away we decided as a business that we didn’t want to make any profit as a result, but rather help to fight this disease, so everything we have been supplying for the ventilators has been at cost price. 

When an order related to this comes in everything else is pushed aside.

“It becomes the priority job — to help as a small cog within the bigger machine that saves lives.  Of course during the process we are ensuring the safety of our workforce with implemented measures such as social distancing and staggered work patterns.”
 
Richard Nield, Master Fluid Solutions district sales manager, said: “This is such a positive example of local businesses coming together to support the larger cause and we are happy to help.  

“We praise the employees at Brown and Hawthorne for coming together at this crucial time.”