The Coleshill-based company, which employs 54 people, has re-engineered a bearing support bracket for a tier 1 automotive supplier in the US and will now be manufacturing 380,000 precision pressings every year.
The company estimates the contract will be worth £1.2 million and is one of the first reshoring projects it has won in recent years.
"The client was having a few issues with a troublesome part, which at the time was being cast," commented Barry Smith, Managing Director.
"We like a challenge and offered to use our design engineers to look at alternative processes. After six months, we put together a prototype bearing support bracket made by pressing and stamping, saving up to 60% on the price of the part whilst offering the same level of performance."
He continued: "The component, which is being produced on our new 400 tonne Chinfong press from Worcester Presses, will be going into the Chrysler range of vehicles and has immediately created seven new jobs; four of those are young apprentices in the engineering department."
HT Brigham, which supplies the automotive, construction and medical sectors, believes support provided by Business Growth Service's Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS) was crucial to it effectively supplying the order to America.
Bosses at the firm have been working with MAS business growth manager Maxine Chapman on implementing a number of continuous improvement projects designed to increase workflow, increase efficiency and monitor quality levels.
KPIs, 5S and cross functional teams have been introduced to drive through these objectives and the company has already seen better product control and capacity planning, reduced changeover and a more structured approach to problem solving.
"There is little doubt that MAS has made us work smarter and this has helped us become more competitive," Smith said.
"It gave us the capacity to free up people to look at this work, whilst maintaining production levels for all our existing clients."
Business Growth Manager Maxine Chapman added her support: "One of our roles is to help companies identify and overcome any barriers to growth and we're already enjoying success with HT Brigham.
"By making it more efficient, we have given it the platform to not only safeguard existing contracts, but actually go after new opportunities – something it has already started to do with the reshoring wins."
HT Brigham is expecting turnover to increase by 30% in 2015, with sales estimated to reach £5.4m.
Nearly 70% of this is exported all over the world to countries, including Czech Republic, France, Hungary, India, Italy, Mexico and Slovakia.
