Sanpro Industries, a Kiwi-based company headquartered in Petone that develops exhaust system manufacturing equipment, has secured a contract with Faurecia to supply plants with its machines.
The contract is anticipated to be worth more than $25 million over a five-year period.
Worldwide one in four cars is equipped by Faurecia, including Volkswagen, Renault-Nissan, BMW, Ford, General Motors, Toyota, Daimler and Hyundai-Kia, says Stuff.
As the sixth-largest car system manufacturer in the world, Faurecia wanted the fastest muffler perforation machine on the planet; Sanpro’s TPM4 can drill 100 holes per second, leaving behind bins of tinsel-like metal coils
Sanpro’s machines, which perforate the tubes that are used in mufflers to help dull engine sound, each cost $250,000 and take four to six weeks to make.
Faurecia’s head of special projects worldwide Randy Sprow says the company will be purchasing about 100 Sanpro machines over the next five years for use at about 10 plants in the Czech Republic, India, South Africa and Brazil.
Sprow adds that the machine is the ‘global-standard’ for muffler perforation. “This is proven technology; it’s the best we could find and it’s innovative!”
Sanpro managing director and founder Malcolm Sanderson says the company typically sells 10 to 20 TPM4 machines a year.
He explains that the company’s lobby has a collection of about 30 mufflers on display which use its machines, from ‘those used on John Deere’s tractors and a C-class Mercedes Benz to the BMW X5 and Harley Davidson motorcycle’.
“One of our first machines produced a very unique part which is called a spiral lever and that’s proved very successful in the Harley Davidson and all the sports muffler manufacturers,” says Sanderson. Harley Davidsons around the world have a muffler punctured by a machine Sanderson made in his Petone factory.
When the company started, Petone was a major hub of automotive manufacturing but, as this disappeared, the company had to be reinvented to survive.
“While we made our own mufflers, we were building our own machinery. The machinery we built to make our mufflers turned out to be better than anyone else’s so we started producing the machinery and selling it around the world,” says Sanderson.
It was not until Sanderson travelled to exhibit his machine at an automotive show in Cincinnati in 1995 that he realised his perforating technology was unique. “We sold out of the machine that afternoon and we still had three days of show,” he points out.
Sanpro now exports to more than 30 countries including Korea, the US, Russia, South Africa, and Iran. “The first machine Sanpro sold is still running today, making millions of mufflers a year in Indonesia. I think we’re quite capable of being competitive here in New Zealand with the technology that’s available. I’ve always thought New Zealand should be the Switzerland of the South Pacific – hi-tech, low-volume manufacture,” concludes Sanderson.
The Petone company was named the ‘quiet achiever’ as it took out the export category at the recent Wellington Gold Awards.
