Pentre in practice: less steel, lower cost

A long-term Pentre customer makes steel wire ropes for some of the most demanding industries in the world, including oil and gas, mining and logistics. We supply them with a standard range of steel drums and cradles.

After Covid-19, material shortages and rising steel prices pushed up the cost of making the range. Rather than treat it as a pricing problem alone, Pentre committed to value engineering: redesigning every drum and cradle to use less steel without compromising the load each one has to carry.

The brief had two targets:

• Reduce the weight of the drums and cradles.
• Improve lead times across the range.

Our design team in St Helens re-engineered the range from first principles, producing two product lines:

• Pentre Steel Drum (PSD).
• Pentre Steel Cradle (PSC).

Together they cover 17 part numbers. The new designs have been granted registered design protection by both the UK Intellectual Property Office and the EU Intellectual Property Office.

Against the original range, the redesign achieved:

• A 13% weight reduction on drums.
• A 64% weight reduction on cradles.
• 30% shorter lead times.

Less steel in every unit means a lower material cost for the customer. It also means less raw material to produce each drum and cradle, and lower embedded emissions as a result. The products are lighter to handle and transport, and do the same job they did before.

If you have a standard range that could do with the same review, speak to our product specialists on +44 (0) 1942 676331.