Managed by Richard Guest, the company employs over 220 people across all sites.
Since its acquisition by Harris Watson, Froude Hofmann has invested heavily in new routes to market and product development leading to a significant increase in order intake from around the world. Today, Froude Hofmann has additional sales and service centres in Australia, Brazil, China, Czech Republic, France and India. The business offers a truly global solution for the major OEM and Tier 1 players in the automotive, aerospace and marine industries.
Over the past year, almost 50% of orders have come from new product development and new routes to market. Some of the innovative new products Froude Hofmann has introduced include a state-of-the-art robot driver for chassis dynamometer and power-train applications, and the vDriver product that reproduces real-driver and route characteristics into engine and vehicle test cells. These new products provide customers with powerful tools to assist in the rapid development of hybrid and alternative fuel power for trains and vehicles.
In other sectors, Froude Hofmann has expanded its range of aerospace and marine dynamometers, and gained significant market share within each market.
- Froude Hofmann have been involved in the supply of Mileage Accumulation Chassis Dynamometer test systems from the earliest requirements for the regulatory U.S.E.P.A. 50,000 miles, exhaust system endurance testing. With the development of our product capability and the increasing demands for more sophisticated test requirements from our customers, this application has evolved into a fully flexible automated test solution.
- Our computer controlled vehicle test systems are normally arranged to provide a total test package at the end of the vehicle production line or to meet the need for a stand-alone test station, for example, in development, quality audit or post rectification tests. The test stand can be configured for different kinds of tests, such as function, brake, ABS, EDS, ESP, ASR, AWD etc. for car, truck, tractor or motor cycle testing. It is possible to have all this testing capability in a single test machine.
- vDriver provides development engineers with a unique package that can reduce the product development cycle involved in vehicle engine powertrain testing by simulating the variability associated with particular driving styles and routes. vDriver operates as a distance based sequencer, allowing users to reproduce specific routes and driving styles on their chassis, transient engine and powertrain dynamometers. Users can either record routes, or select global pre-recorded routes.
- By using a S-RTS in the End Of Line area, car manufacturers are getting an improvement in testing their cars with reference to high tested quality and avoiding any "acoustic faults" which may have occurred during the production of the car.
- This highly technical area of testing has been driven to higher levels of sophistication by market demands for vehicle refinement, ultimately providing improved driver comfort levels. We have many specialist chassis dynamometer installations that allow investigation of N.V.H. levels whilst the vehicle is running under accurate and repeatable road load simulation, speed, force or acceleration control.