Our Capabilities
NMB Minebea’s history goes all the way back until 1880, but how far have we come since then?
NMB Minebea UK Ltd’s core competence is in landing gear bearings, aerospace bearings of swaged and split construction, tram coupling and special vehicle suspension bearings.
We Continue to Develop our Product Range
to provide, lighter weight solutions metallic and composite, advanced surface treatments to replace cad/chrome coatings, seal arrangements and longer life liner. NMB Minebea UK Ltd. will lead the market place through manufacturing and technological excellence and our simple mission is to be the world leader in the design, manufacture and testing of landing gear bearings and large-size bearings on all major and new programmes for all global manufacturers.
Our History
The History of NMB Minebea is undoubtedly very impressive, and one we are very proud of. Here we have a brief history of the company:
1880
William Rose, a small town tobacconist in Lincolnshire, turned his attention to creating a machine to automatically wrap half-ounce packets of tobacco (at the time only Sardines and blacking compounds were ready packed).
1881
A provisional patent is taken out for a tobacco wrapping machine. This development was looked on as something of a miracle – tobacco became the first product to be mechanically wrapped for sale.
1885
A joint patent was taken out with Wills Tobacco of Bristol. Soon after, demand for machines to produce packets of various sizes for the American market rapidly increased, and a new factory was set up on the banks of the River Trent.
1898
Motoring was very much in it’s infancy when Mr Rose designed and built a motorcar for himself. Due to it’s popularity, he started to commercially produce some of the world’s first motor cars under the ‘Rose National’ brand.
1906
William Rose and his brothers became ‘Rose Brothers (Gainsborough) Ltd’ and their machines were used for wrapping confectionery and bakery products.
1914
During the First World War, the company manufactured gun sights, breech blocks, shells and synchronization equipment requiring high precision design and manufacture, allowing an aircraft gunner to fire through moving propellers.
1938
Cadbury’s Roses chocolates are named after the company, as Rose Brothers developed the first machine capable of wrapping multi-shaped sweets.
1939
With the outbreak of the Second World War, the business diversified into war production, including creating the Rose Turret used in Lancaster bombers. They also developed connections for rods for Lancaster bombers, which led the company into the bearings market.
1954
Rose Bearings began to concentrate exclusively on the development and production of bearings at Saxilby.
1965
‘Rose’ had became a generic term for rod ends and spherical bearings in much the same way as we still clean our carpets with a ‘Hoover’. By the 21st anniversary of the factory the company employed over 200 people.
1967
The Rose Bearings Division and Rose Brothers Ltd were merged with Forgrove Machinery Company Ltd to form Rose Forgrove Ltd, which was one of the first companies to offer self-lubricating materials with uniflon. This technology remains at the forefront of the market.
1970
After producing bearings used in racing cars for many years, Rose Bearings sponsored its own racing driver for the first time. The driver was James Hunt, who later went on to be become the Formula 1 World Champion in 1976.
1983
Rose Bearings were used in Richard Noble’s land speed record car, Thrust 2.
1985
Emphasis was focused on the sales of special and aerospace bearings specifically for Airbus and BA146.
1987
Rose Bearings was sold by APV to Minebea Co, Ltd. Japan.
2000
Mark Stansfield was promoted to Managing Director. At this time annual sales were £10M per year.
Deliveries commenced of the first titanium bearing solutions for landing gear for the Airbus A380, the world’s largest passenger airliner. This became the de facto standard for future programmes such as A350 and Boeing 787 and established NMB Minebea UK as the global leader in the provider of aircraft landing gear bearings.
2002
Railway & Tram bearings commenced design, development and production. The standards for product design & manufacturing integrity and passenger safety are equally applicable to the rail and tram market as they are to aerospace.
2003
Rose Bearings name changes to NMB Minebea UK Ltd.
2012
500 bearings supplied to a state of the art architectural masterpiece for the Louis Vuitton Foundation – all an integral part of the structure of the building.
The Future
The company is pushing the frontiers of bearing technology in aerospace applications to include performance testing and the development of coatings and weight saving solutions.