Draw-Strand-Assemble: CWI connects the parts that build our world
From wire rod coils to assembled parts, CWI connects. Draw-Strand-Assemble is how CWI works with customers to transform an individual component into the finished product. CWI wire and wire related products weave their way throughout high-end applications from 30,000 feet deep to outer space and many places in between.
Connecting manufacturing challenges to solutions
It starts at one of many CWI factories where drawing specialty alloy wires from coils of metal rod, such as stainless steel, nickel, cobalt and copper alloys is CWI’s expertise. Drawing, the 
metalworking process by which rod or wire is elongated and reduced to a precise diameter, is just the beginning. Depending on the product application, the metal alloy is expertly processed, heated and surface treated into an array of fine wire products including bar stock, specialty shape profile wire and numerous welding wire products. Finished wire is often the starting raw material in the manufacture of other value-added products such as fasteners, mesh, belting, weaves, filters, springs and screens. The industries served are numerous, and it is safe to say wherever metal equipment is found there is a wire component to be found.
Strength in multiple strands
After drawing, some CWI wire heads to Strand Core, for stranding. Strand Core, CWI’s Florida-based company, winds wire to create numerous cable and wire rope configurations. The cable can also undergo further heat or chemical treatment depending on the final application. Stranded wire is stronger, more flexible and durable than solid—single strand—wire. Hence, cable and wire rope are used to make lifting, supporting, rigging and push/pull mechanisms and assemblies for aerospace, architecture, automotive, marine, medical, theatrical, and oil and gas applications.
Strand Core cable connects to Sanlo Inc. in Indiana, especially when Made in America products are needed from melt stage to finished assembly. Sanlo takes various cable products and coats them with vinyl or nylon and/or adds a variety of fittings to make custom engineered mechanical cable assemblies. These assembled products help solve an array of “connection” challenges in automotive, railcar, recreational, safety, and security product applications.
CWI, Strand Core and Sanlo products become key components in a vast array of industrial and commercial applications, including fastening, welding, lifting, joining, supporting, heating, cutting, pushing, pulling, dampening, protecting and securing. Ongoing articles and blogs on this site will explore in more detail the connections between CWI products and the final end-uses we see and use every day. Some applications are in plain sight and others are deeply hidden. You’ll be surprised to learn the stages and processes wire goes through to make a product or how it plays a critical component role in a machine or process.
Draw-Strand-Assemble: It’s how CWI connects wire to manufacturers in building a better world.
CWI: Certified quality management and performance
Central Wire Industries’ has successfully transitioned each of its facilities to the latest versions of the respective QMS standards, including Sanlo Inc. and Strand Core. CWI maintains two highly recognized quality management system certifications. All our manufacturing facilities are ISO 9001:2015 registered and our CWI-Perris and Strand Core locations also have AS 9100:2016 (D) registration.
“As CWI has grown, so has the complexity for managing and maintaining different quality systems at our many locations and businesses,” says V. Jeff Martin, CWI Director of Technology and Quality. We take the necessary steps to be independently registered at all nine of our manufacturing facilities.
Potential customers, buyers, and clients look for and expect these certifications. But for CWI the process is not simply to check a compliance box; the structured procedures, documentation, and standards reinforce our meticulous effort around safety, quality, and customer service. In fact, it pushes us to do better, exceeding client expectations.
Outside certification registrars check and verify that the plants are meeting the requirements of the various standards. Our many facilities require a variety of assessors; we are certified by BSI in the US and UK, Smithers Quality Assessments, SRI, and Preferred Registrar Group. Those certification checks are periodic, but with the updates in ISO 9001:2015 more closely aligning quality and successful business strategies, CWI sees the benefits of maintaining the standards and adhering to the requirements day in and day out.
At CWI we are continuously self-monitoring and performing our own internal audits. We revisit goals and adjust as necessary, working towards continual improvements. We are always examining our processes and considering ways to improve them. We go beyond the certification requirements to most efficiently provide the highest quality and services.
CWI is proud to have advanced to the ISO 9100: 2015 and AS9100:2016 (D) standards. They are less rigid in many ways, having a greater focus on performance. They require involvement from top level management down to the factory floors and offices. This leads to focused goals that are clear throughout an organization. The updated ISO 9100:2015 has a new “high level structure” that, through creating commonality, allows easy integration and communication across management systems and among managers.
It combines the process approach with risk-based thinking, and it employs the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle with inclusion of knowledge management principles as well. “CWI uses the PDCA cycle at all levels of the organization –at sales order entry, production planning, contract review, manufacturing, testing, certification, shipping, claims, accounting/finance, and management,” Martin says. It allows the company to serve customers’ individual needs while maintaining industry standards and manufacturing high-quality products and services. The ISO and AS standards help CWI and CWI companies remain on the same page and speak the same language across industries, state lines, and international borders.
CWI UK receives the Queen's Award for Enterprise
CWI UK receives the Queen`s Award for Enterprise in the category of International Trade, CWI UK awarded country's most prestigious honor
Central Wire Industries is proud to announce that Central Wire Industries UK Limited has been awarded the 2018 Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the category of International Trade. With facilities in Rotherham, CWI UK Ltd is a leading manufacturer of stainless steel and nickel-based alloy wires. The award recognizes the company’s impressive 92%-plus growth in export sales in the last three years.
CWI UK will be able to use the esteemed Queen’s Award emblem for the next five years.
James Roper, managing director of CWI UK Ltd, said: "I am absolutely delighted that Central Wire Industries UK Ltd has won the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise. The winning of this award gives recognition to all the hard work and commitment given by each of our employees both past and present."
From Canada, Central Wire Industries Ltd. President and CEO Paul From agreed: “It is very exciting, and I attribute the success in whole to the UK team.”
Currently CWI UK employs 57 people. It is part of the Central Wire Industries Ltd group of companies headquartered in Ontario, Canada.
CWI has the widest range of high performance specialty alloys in nickel, stainless and red metal, and cable products, which are used in multiple industries worldwide, including oil and gas, medical, aerospace, automotive, and marine. CWI UK’s wire drawing and wire rolling operations manufacture round and profile forms in more than 50 different alloys.
Now in its 52nd year, the Queen’s Award for Enterprise is the most prestigious business award in the United Kingdom. CWI UK will receive the award with trophy during a royal reception for Queen’s Award winners at Buckingham Palace this summer.
About Central Wire Industries, Ltd.
CWI manufactures and distributes specialty alloy wire and cable products. Headquartered in Perth, Ontario, Canada it has more than 400 employees selling products in more than 50 countries. For more information, visit www.centralwire.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter @CentralWireInd and @CentralWireUK.
CWI’s stainless steel wire roots connect to Sheffield (where it all began)
CWI’s stainless steel wire roots connect to Sheffield (where it all began)
Central Wire Industries embraces new opportunities and advancements that make us a well-rounded specialty alloy wire supplier meeting the needs of a variety of industries. While we continue to look forward we haven’t forgotten our industrial roots and are proud to have a connection to them with CWI UK, our plant in Rotherham, a stone’s throw from Sheffield. CWI acquired Hempel Wire Industries Rotherham, UK facility in 2015, which added new IP, shaped profile wire, and other products.
Sheffield was often called Steel City and was once the undisputed metalworking capital of the world. It has been known for its cutlery production for nearly 800 years, but it became one of the world’s industrial capitals in the 1700s when new techniques were developed there that revolutionized the steel industry.
Crucible and silver plate
First was the crucible steel process, the first method of casting steel bars, producing a tougher, steel that had consistent, reliable quality. It also could be produced in larger quantities. Benjamin Huntsman’s technique led Sheffield from producing 200 tons of steel a year to 20,000 tons.
Soon after Thomas Boulsover, a cutlery maker, created silver plate. He happened upon a temperature for fusing silver and copper and found them compatible for manipulation. This faux silver was obviously cheaper and became popular, allowing the working class to showcase their own silver teapots, candlesticks and cutlery.
Bessemer to Brearley
More than 100 years later Sheffield would again be at the center of a steel-industry revolution when Henry Bessemer perfected a special furnace to super-heat iron and refine the metal to steel. The process lowered the production cost of steel and thus increased an industrializing world’s ability to acquire and use it.
Maintaining its reputation as a place for innovation, the formula and process for making stainless steel were developed by Harry Brearley in the steelmaking labs of Sheffield in the early 1900s.
Brearley ran into considerable resistance when trying to sell the steel that rusted and stained less. It was as if only he could see its potential value. He said:
“The range of the mind’s eye is restricted by the skill of the hand. The castles in the air must conform to the possibilities of material things—border-line possibilities perhaps; or, if something beyond the known border is required, the plan must wait until other dreams come true.”
Eventually, his persistence paid off. Where other low-carbon chromium-iron alloys didn’t take off, Brearley teamed with his cutlery-making friends to prove what he had immediately thought—this rust-resistant steel would be brilliant for knives. It would eventually find other uses—anywhere that corrosion would be an issue, including power generation, oil and gas, construction and food production industries.
Brearley is known as the Father of Modern Metal, and we think of him as our forefather and Sheffield as our ancestral home. From that beginning CWI now produces more than 40 grades of stainless steel wire, used for everything from fine jewelry to aerospace components. Bessemer, Brearley and the others would be proud.
Facing off against alloy wire counterfeiters
How companies can guard against fraud that threatens brand integrity and safety
It is difficult to imagine that counterfeiters copying patented and trademarked goods from halfway around the world affect your business, employees and customers, but they do. The theft of intellectual property patents, trademarks and copyrights creates a negative chain reaction that can include the loss of revenue, jobs, brand integrity and safety.
On a global scale, counterfeit products sometimes known as knock-offs cost billions of dollars every year. That estimated cost has grown from $5.5 billion in 1982 to $600 billion presently, a staggering 10,000 percent increase. It’s more than purses and jeans. Knock-offs have crept into the alloy wire industry, which produces critical components of products that affect every aspect of our lives—from medical equipment to bridges, from toasters to cars. The repercussions from using counterfeit metals and wires could be dire.
A company can implement numerous safeguards to protect its intellectual property (IP):
- Search the internet: Search for your keywords, taglines and product identifiers to see what comes up in results besides your company and products. Then you can determine whether any infringement issues are present. Many sites, such as Trademarkia, offer checks for trademarks and intellectual property. Basic searches can provide fast and free information regarding trademark names, logos and symbols and patent applications. Use DMCA to protect your content.
- Invest in a monitor: Many companies retain trademark and patent monitoring services, which have proliferated in the digital age. It’s a company’s responsibility to protect its trademark, patents and copyrights against illegal confiscation, infringement and misuse. Monitoring companies will do your internet searches for you, watch patent applications and trademark requests, and alert you to potential issues.
- Use non-disclosure agreements: Also known as confidentiality agreements, non-disclosure agreements outline confidential material, knowledge or information that is shared between two or more parties.
“Make sure your employment agreements, licenses, sales contracts and technology transfer agreements all protect your intellectual property too, right from the get-go.” (SOURCE: https://www.inc.com/kelly-fitzsimmons/ten-ways-to-protect-your-intellectual-property.html).
- Use smart contracts: These logic-based computer algorithms are designed to exchange goods or services using money, property or shares without the complex interactions of a middleman. It’s contract by computer code. Smart contracts are black and white and leave open few windows of opportunity for misinterpretation or fraud.
“Smart contracts not only define the rules and penalties around an agreement in the same way that a traditional contract does, but also automatically enforce those obligations.” (SOURCE: https://blockgeeks.com/guides/smart-contracts/)
- Join organizations: Groups such as the International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition Inc. combat the escalation in IP fraud around the globe. The IACC in conjunction with credit card and financial services companies established RogueBlock in 2012 to detect and squash counterfeit fraud. RogueBlock’s tentacles have reached and destroyed more than 5,000 counterfeiting merchant accounts operating via more than 200,000 websites.
Another force of unprecedented success is IACC MarketSafe, which was launched in 2014 to eliminate listings of counterfeits. It has resulted in a “100% takedown rate on listings when companies stand behind their claims,” the company reports. Approximately 6,800 sellers’ storefronts have shut down and been permanently banned, and 200,000 product listings have been removed from the internet. While business-to-consumer (B2C) fraud protection typically gets all the press, business-to-business (B2B) and industrial supply chain fraud can be just as extensive. Industrial suppliers need to use the same safeguards as B2C.
With unscrupulous counterfeiters tempting and deceiving companies with lower prices, how can you protect your process, employees and reputation? And perhaps more importantly, how do you protect the safety of your products and avoid the possible dire consequences of having a device or piece of equipment fail because of inferior metal “knock-offs”?
As a business buying goods, you can also take extra precautions against counterfeit materials.
- Search government IP databases. In a digital world, copying and pasting trademarked names and logos into documentation is easy, and even support documentation such as raw material certifications can be misleading or falsified. Buyers need to do their homework and understand where and how the products they are buying are produced; going directly to the originator or holder of the trademark will expediate this. Many countries have government trademark databases wherein the holder and interested parties such as distributors can be verified.
- Verify certification: Does the product meet industry testing standards? Legitimate metal producers such as CWI (Central Wire Industries) employ mature quality management systems, backed by quality certifications such as ISO: 9001 and AS9100C. The testing process leading up to certification ensures that the quality of products meets or surpasses the industry standard. Supply chains of raw materials are vetted and checked, including independent third-party laboratory testing. Buyers of trademarked or patented products need to check with the original IP holders to see whether the product they are purchasing comes from the proper manufacturer, a licensed producer or an authorized distributor or agent.
Counterfeiters and their fraudulent products can be catastrophic to many parties and undoubtedly to a company’s reputation. A little bit of time spent researching the legitimacy of your suppliers, their product origins and quality standards is well worth the effort in helping to combat trademark and IP fraud. Also, it can ensure the safety of your workers and others and preserve the good standing and trustworthiness of your company within your industry.
This is the second blog on trademark counterfeiting. Read “Copycats and costly catastrophes: A dangerous supply chain game” for more information.
Copy Cats and Costly Catastrophes: A dangerous supply chain game
Stealing intellectual property (IP) or using counterfeit branded products, whether it’s a designer purse or a special metal alloy, can result in devastating consequences to the end user.
Companies spend considerable effort, time, and money in creating new products for customer benefit. This intellectual property is often patented and/or trademarked. The latter action is undertaken to create brand names for customers to readily identify the products they want and need. A trademarked product acts as a type of insurance, but buyers need to do their homework to ensure that they are getting what they paid for and are not using an inferior and potentially dangerous “knock-off”.
Counterfeits and knock-offs are a multi-billion dollar a year industry that has grown from a vendor selling goods out of the back of his truck to the vast globalized supply chain that has descended upon us in the last 25 years, and has unwittingly provided an infinite number of enticing illegal opportunities for counterfeiters to embrace.
So why is incorporating counterfeit metals into your production process or end use playing a dangerous game?
Knock-offs have crept into the alloy wire industry which produces critical components utilized in the medical, aerospace, oil & gas, appliance, electronics, mining, automotive and a host of other industries, touching every aspect of our lives. In fact, the majority of the goods we consume on a daily basis carry some elements of metal, from the smart phones buzzing in our pockets to the intricate leading edge medical wire MIT researchers have used to develop an implantable device that recognizes which drugs are compatible for eradicating cancerous tumors. In this precarious situation, using a “knock-off” metal could result in dire consequences, and possibly even death for an individual already struggling to survive.
Industrial infrastructure that we depend on in our daily lifestyles is often tied to proper use of trademarked materials and the benefits they incur to the end users. The creation of industry standards for commercial materials, such as the Unified Numbering System (UNS) for metals and alloys to systematically designate them by composition, “does not guarantee any performance specifications or exact composition with impurity limits.” Quality and performance variances exist from supplier to supplier within any given alloy, despite the classification system used to identify and source them.
Leading manufacturers of metals and metal products, like Central Wire Industries (CWI) employ process trade secrets to ensure quality, tight tolerances and/or discernable special properties of final product grades. CWI goes to great lengths to ensure the integrity and quality of raw materials in their supply chain, especially when the final product carries a globally recognizable trademark or brand name like GDTM and SUPAâ used in oil and gas wireline and slickline applications. Many end users test and approve these products and include the 
trademarked brand names in their final purchase specification and such is the case for several grades of the GDTM and SUPAâ family of products. Only CWI plants are authorized to make these trademarked products and select distributors and agents then act as resellers around the world to ensure stock availability and on-time delivery.
Specialty alloy slicklines are designed to perform in very harsh and corrosive conditions, and with varying degrees of mechanical stress in wells. Oil and gas wells around the world are being drilled to almost unthinkable depths, with the deepest well completed by Exxon Nefegus in 2012 measuring an astounding 12,376 meters (40,604 ft.) The strength, quality, and reliability of metals required to withstand the severe operating pressures, temperatures, loads and chemical environments at these depths is crucial in order to avoid catastrophic events such as failed equipment, loss of production, or even loss of human life or environmental disasters.
Using products from un-approved suppliers or trademark counterfeiters can result in product liability claims due to: equipment failure, loss of production and/or costly repairs or fishing jobs, and possibly structural and environmental catastrophes. Even worse is the prospect of worker injury should the inferior metals purchased from deceitful suppliers fail during use. These consequences of failure can be greatly compounded in environmentally sensitive areas such as offshore drilling.
In today’s globalized supply chain environment, raw materials can be procured from any number of sources and due diligence is required to guarantee not only trademark ownership, but also the absence of conflict minerals. Subsequently, minerals can be melted almost anywhere in the world including numerous locations in new or developing economic regions and countries, where industrial and commercial trade practices may not meet recognized supply chain integrity standards.
With unscrupulous counterfeiters tempting or deceiving companies with lower prices and availability of specialty alloys, how can you police the fair use of your trademarked products and the integrity of the brands? Quality suppliers want to ensure the safe use of their products, and maximize customer user experience. The next blog in this series will explore how manufacturers and customers can both protect trademarks and ensure that they are getting what they paid for from metal melt to finished product.
Note: GDTM and SUPA® are trademarks of Central Wire Industries Ltd.
Central Wire Industries Celebrates the Acquisition of Sanlo, Inc
August 26, 2016 – Perth, Ontario, Canada - Central Wire Industries (CWI) is pleased to announce the acquisition of Sanlo, Inc. (Sanlo), a manufacturer and distributor of galvanized and stainless wire rope, custom extruded products, and engineered cable assemblies located in Michigan City, Indiana.
Please click here for the news release in PDF format.
CWI UK Showcased at “Wire 2016” Trade Show
Central Wire Industries UK had the opportunity to display under the CWI group of companies banner at Wire 2016. Previously known as Hempel Wire Ltd, CWI purchased the company in 2015 and was very excited to showcase their wide range of Stainless Steels / Nickel alloys / Non-Ferrous wires - spring wires, profiles, slicklines, ropes and cables.
It was a huge event that brought together numerous industry professionals. Thank-you to all our international agents that were with us to assist in building new relationships and connecting with the visitors to our stand. Over the course of the five day show we met business experts and customers from all around the globe in industries such as nuclear, aerospace, medical, automotive and oil and gas sectors.
Wire 2016 was the perfect time to launch our newest innovation, our mobile CWI APP. This new technology provides on-thego access to important information and services related to your business needs. With the 60 inch touch screen-feature available this allowed visitors to draw their desired profile/shape and submit the design to CWI. Guests visit the CWI booth at Wire 2016 With a great number of new connections and many more requests for information by mail, CWI is happy to report the success of Wire 2016. Keep a close eye on us for Wire Dusseldorf 2018, CWI plans on being the biggest, and best ever!
WIRE 2016
