Machining Methods

The bilstein group's manufacturing competence has a long heritage. Its roots date back to 1844.

The wealth of experience in metal processing is great. Wear parts for automobiles have been produced at the main site in Ennepetal since the 1920s.

Today, the manufacturing competence within the bilstein group and its product brands lies with bilstein group Engineering. Selected articles from the extensive ranges of the febi, SWAG and Blue Print product brands are produced here on modern, CNC-controlled machines. These include water pumps, oil pumps, control arms, chain tensioners, belt tensioners, release forks, king pins and wheel hubs.

Compliance with the highest quality standards is guaranteed for us.

Everything from a Single Source

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A view into the production facility of bilstein group Engineering

         

bilstein group Engineering covers nearly the complete production chain with 10,000 square metres of production space: from tool construction and machining to a hardening shop and quality assurance within its own testing laboratory.

Alongside technical wear parts for the product brands febi, SWAG and Blue Print, bilstein group Engineering also manufactures components for different branches of industry - including drive and gear shafts, coupling pins and coupling hubs.

Numerous vehicle manufacturers in the passenger car and commercial vehicle sector also rely on supplied parts from our precision production.

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Production Priorities

     

Here you will find a selection of parts for the Independent Aftermarket manufactured in-house

Passenger Cars

  • Cam follower

  • Chain tensioner

  • Oil pump

  • Rocker arm

  • Control arm

  • Wheel hub

  • and many more

Commercial Vehicles

  • King pin

  • Brake shoe bolt

  • Clutch fork

  • Belt tensioner

  • Water pump

  • Spring pin

  • and many more

Original Equipment – This is the Standard by Which We Measure Ourselves

Progressive manufacturing and many years of production experience makes bilstein group Engineering a consistent, quality manufacturer.

In order to supply passenger car and commercial vehicle components in OE matching quality, we employ such methods as reverse engineering. An OE spare part is always used as the template in this process. It also serves as the quality standard by which we measure ourselves.

In the first stage, a high-performance Nikon 3D laser scanner is used to measure the whole of the template. This device operates in a tolerance range of 0.05 to 0.08 mm – an accuracy at which even the smallest details can be recorded. The article is scanned completely in less than three hours. Then the data is processed with a CAD program and turned into a design drawing.

In the next stage, an initial small batch of a few hundred blanks is manufactured based on this design drawing. Before any further mechanical processing at bilstein group Engineering, the blanks are subjected to spot checks. The 3D scanner is used again in these inspections, this time to generate a false colour image of the examined component. This allows deviations from the OE template to be detected directly.

Once Quality Control has granted approval, the blanks can undergo further mechanical processing (milling, drilling, grinding, etc.). Our decades of experience in machining metals is as much an advantage here as our modern machinery. In this way, a spare part is created that meets precisely the same criteria in terms of installation reliability and quality as the OE product – all thanks to reverse engineering.

The aim of the bilstein group and its product brands is to always exceed the customers’ expectations.

Insights into Quality Assurance at bilstein group Engineering

In the modern, well-equipped testing laboratory of bilstein group Engineering, the manufactured components are intensively tested for material quality, tensile strength and dimensional accuracy.

Our specialists have the widest variety of tools at their disposal for this purpose:

  • 3-coordinate measuring machine
  • Optical wave measuring machine
  • Gear tooth measuring machines
  • Form tester (CNC)
  • Contour and depth-to-valley measurement (CNC)
  • Materials testing/analysis

Also in production, we rely on consistent quality control. For example, all oil pumps are subjected to a 100 percent performance test on a test rig developed specifically for this purpose.

Machining Methods

With our wide range of manufacturing methods and state-of-the-art CNC machines, we manufacture components with perfect precision.

Gear cutting
Housing production
Turning
Heat treatment
Grinding
Deep-hole drilling
Milling
Reaming
Surface treatment

State-of-the-Art Production Facility

      

The production hall of bilstein group Engineering meets the highest standards of modern production and a contemporary working environment.

More than
130 employees

2,500 m2
Logistics area

10,000 m2
Production area

More than
70 machines

Partnership with OE Manufacturers

         

With its febi, SWAG and Blue Print brands, the bilstein group supplies replacement parts exclusively in OE matching quality. In numerous product groups, we focus on faithful, longstanding partnerships with prestigious OE suppliers. In the passenger car segment, for example, we offer timing chains from renowned original equipment supplier iwis and drive shaft couplings from SGF. In the commercial vehicle segment, febi Truck’s assortment includes MEKRA mirrors and gas springs from STABILUS.

With these partnerships, the bilstein group makes replacement parts available to the aftermarket, which have been produced exclusively as original equipment.

Production by Professional Partners

Our product range comprises of more than 70,000 different replacement parts. Although we possess the necessary well-founded production expertise, the variety and diversity of our range means that we cannot manufacture all these articles ourselves.

Beyond a certain number of parts, we therefore award the production order to external partners. In doing so, we retain complete control over the quality of articles as they are produced in strict accordance with our detailed specifications.

Be it in-house production or partner producers: We ensure consistently high product quality with regular quality assurance inspections.