The history of NMB Minebea UK and engineering heritage

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 was 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 its infancy when Mr Rose designed and built a motorcar for himself. Due to its 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 synchronisation 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, Lincolnshire

1965

‘Rose’ had become a generic term for rod ends and spherical bearings in much the same way as we still clean our carpets with a ‘Hoover’ vacuum cleaner. 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 went on to 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 in Japan.

2000

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 as the global leader in the provider of aircraft landing gear bearings.

2002 - 2003

Railway & Tram bearings commenced design, development and production. The standards for product design and manufacturing integrity and passenger safety are equally applicable to the rail and tram market as they are to aerospace.

Rose Bearings name changes to NMB.

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

NMB is pushing the frontiers of bearing technology in aerospace applications to include performance testing and the development of coatings and weight saving solutions.

NMB Client Portfolio

Global sales teams manage the relationship between customers and the customer service activities of the manufacturing principal. Collectively, the Business Unit also provides aerospace fasteners, machined components, rolling element and standard bearings for our customers in Europe and overseas that are manufactured by MinebeaMitsumi Group companies.

Each factory or manufacturing principal designs, tests and produces spherical bearings for aerospace and other industries, while managing the engineering relationship between customer and factory on new product development and introduction. NMB is a leader in the global marketplace for landing gear attachment bearings, suspension bearings and tram coupling bearings worldwide.

We supply across all major aircraft programmes including Airbus, Irkut, Comac, Embraer and their strategic partners including Safran, Rolls Royce, GKN and a range of other primes. NMB continues to produce components in Asia for final assembly in the UK and has the worldwide infrastructure to support continual growth over the coming decades.

Our History