To meet current and future needs, our R&D Centre defines and implements the processes and production equipment for bearings and other innovative products.

Focus on the manufacture of bearings

Remain a competitive market leader raises a challenge for INNOVATION and COMPETITIVENESS.

Our Research and Development centre for Manufacturing Engineering, called “TECHNIQUES AND MEANS OF MANUFACTURE (TMF)”:

    teams of 200 technicians, engineers and professionals in machining pool their skills in mechanics, electricity, automation, electronics, physics, industrial computing, robotics, maintenance, project management, Big Data, etc.
    ongoing expertise in the development of new processes and resources, and improvement of the existing ones.
    the steering of industrialisation projects over all NTN-SNR production sites located in Europe and South America.


To achieve its mission, the R&D TMF centre has at its disposal modern working methods and processes:

    means of simulation, CAD, FAO, etc.
    machines dedicated to testing allow the validation of processes
    means of machining to create manufacturing tools and components of machines (CN, TT oven, wire cutting, robots, etc.)
    platform for the design, development, implementation of resources and manufacturing lines, prior to turnkey delivery on production sites
    technical exchanges with NTN R&D teams in Japan
    promotion and development of innovative ideas: filing of patents, internal awards for innovative industrial successes, etc.

Our mastery of each step of the manufacturing

Our experts ensure that demanding requirements are met for each product coming off the production lines.

Our skills are maintained and developed internally for each manufacturing technique:

    first operations: forging, stamping, cold stamping, turning, milling on a machining centre
    heat treatments and surface treatments, washing
    finishes: grinding, super-finishing
    dimensional, optical, non-destructive checks
    assembly
    end of range: setting, marking, greasing, packaging

Our leadership in the automotive, aerospace and rail markets

Manufacture of bearings for the automotive market

In view of the large volumes, manufacturing of products for the automotive OEM and aftermarket, is highly automated.

Manufacture of bearings for the rail market

The manufacturing of bearings for the rail market is very automated.

This allows:

    an improvement in the ergonomics of workstations (heavy bearings)
    the modularity of the ranges to customize bearings based on customer activities by ensuring compliance with the standards of each country (traceability).


Manufacture of bearings for the aerospace market

Manufacturing bearings for the aerospace industry requires high precision manufacturing equipment associated with control, traceability and cleanliness, to ensure the necessary quality and reliability.