On the evening of the 15th of February Sogefi’s Icelandic customer and ATR member Bilanaust gathered its main (potential) customers and flew to the UK to visit the Sogefi filter factories in Wales. The first visit took place on the 16th in the Llantrisant plant, just outside Cardiff. Llantrisant is the so called ‘wet factory’ where both oil and fuel filters are produced, around 22 million filters per year.

During the factory visit we learned about the different stages of the filter production, an impressive process that runs mainly automatically in combination with manual labor. It started with the filter media; we learned how the media paper is cut, how the stretch is taken out of the paper and how the machines pleat the media. The pleats are counted by the machines and after every certain number of pleats the machine marks the filter media and the paper is cut right at the mark in a later stage.

The cut paper will then be folded round manually, sealed and fold on in plastic molds. Then this construction visits the oven and the filtration part of the filter is born. Other items are mainly manually added, like the anti drain ring, the by pass valve construction and of course the metal parts like the filter housing. After each part added it enters a certain oven or other production part where the parts are melted or sealed together. Multiple checks are performed in several stages of production to guarantee the quality of the product.

Jon Gunnar Olason, Product Manager Automotive of Bilanaust: “A very impressive production process, especially the number of checks performed during the different processes. At Bilanaust we of course know about the OE reputation of Sogefi filters, but I am glad that my customers can now see with their own eyes that OE filters and FRAM filters are produced at the same line, with the same number and quality checks. The only differences are the colors, logos and packaging”.

The next morning the Icelandic visited the Sogefi plant in Tredegar, the so called ‘dry factory’ where they produce around 10 million air filters per year. This plant is brand new as 2004 was its first full year in production (the plant has been moved from Abbergevenny to Tredegar); the official opening has even been several months ago! The Tredegar plant focuses on the production of Heavy Duty filters but, apart from air filters, a big part of the plastic molds for the Sogefi group are also produced here. Just as in Llantrisant we could not look anywhere without seeing OE/OES production lines running. We learned about the production process of round air filters, panel air filters and rigid panel air filters. Also we got a look at the heavy duty part of the factory where big cleaners are produced.

Richard Owen, Director Operations of both UK plants “It’s always nice to actually show the people how we produce our filters and what we do to guarantee the quality and performance of the filters. During the factory visit people become aware that the ISO quality certificates are not so easy to obtain; with constant checks during the production process, in our laboratories and the continuous drive of our R&D department we can guarantee the market the OE quality of our filters”.