______________________________________________________________________________________________ Advanex
Europe
One of our more niche success stories would be Advanex ’ s involvement in manufacturing the sliding clips featured on floppy disks
Advanex established its UK locations with products such as its signature KATO wire thread inserts – recently rebranded as KATO Advanex – widely used for creating stronger joints in aluminium , magnesium , and other light alloys .
In the 1940s , when wire thread inserts were being developed , they were designed with small tangs to make the fitting process easier . These tangs then had to be broken off and recovered , especially in the case of engine and aircraft work : “ A modern aircraft engine ,” Neil explains , “ typically has 3-4000 of these inserts installed during assembly and the engine cannot be certified until every last tang has been accounted for , and any remaining tang or debris would be considered FOD ( Foreign Object Debris ) and this can cause extensive damage to aircraft engines .
“ In response to this challenge , KATO devised a new approach that no longer required tangs to be used and therefore removed the need to retrieve them . This was a real game changer and so the Tangless ® insert was born . In the 1980s , we introduced these Tangless ® inserts to the market . In place of the tang , Tangless ® features a drive notch that cuts the installation time of each insert from a minute down to a matter of seconds . The KATO brand became synonymous with this product . Now Kato Tangless ® inserts manufactured by Advanex are considered the gold standard around the world and are used by engineers in many demanding applications
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