Xerox project leads to further work for birkby's

Xerox project leads to further work for birkby's

Keywords: Plastics, Xerox

Birkby's Plastics, one of the privately-owned giants in the European plastics moulding industry, has been awarded a significant contract by Xerox to design,develop and manufacture 18 separate components for one of the company's innovative new range of digital multifunctional office products (MFP).

The 18 items, produced and assembled by Birkby's, make up various parts– functional and cosmetic – within the new Xerox MFP's called CopyCentree, WorkCentre^® and WorkCentre^®Pro.

The project involves Birkby's manufacturing the external covers and some of the key internal functional parts. All items are manufactured in Bayer Bayblend FR86 PC/ABS in a range of colourways – quartz white, moon grey, celestial blue, glacier red, yellowish peach and earth green. The processes include moulding, manual assembly, printing, painting and heat staking.

The user interface assembly involved the moulding of complex key tree assemblies, requiring multiple printing operations. Birkby's invested in a new printer to perform this operation – and then a critical heat stake assembly process was developed, where the positioning of every key is critical. As a key assembler for this project, Birkby's ship the completed items to Xerox's primary manufacturing partner to assemble the end products.

Although the design for the project belongs to Xerox, design modifications were made in-line with Birkby's suggestions – during the process of continued supplier involvement – which offered benefits including cost reductions, assembly improvements, tool life extensions and mould-ability.

Birkby's has already started work on another project for Xerox and is waiting to hear whether it has been nominated for a third in the next few months.

For further information, visit the Web site: www.birkbvs.co.uk