At BecoTec (formerly Johnson-Metall Bearing Components, Norway; now BecoTek Group website), production is reportedly holding steady, and expanding in some areas, even as bearing manufacturers generally report weakness.

BecoTek manufactures a wide variety of centrifugal brass castings and brass bearing cages / retainers for bearing manufacturers worldwide. BecoTek's brass retainers are found in all types of ball and roller bearing applications, from small industrial to rail, mining equipment, and aircraft and aerospace. One specific market segment holding up well is for retainers going into wind turbine bearings.

Founded in 1948, the company's original product line was almost entirely sand cast copper alloys. However, it gradually moved toward brass by the 1990's. BecoTek now has four manufacturing facilities -- the original facility and home office in Amot, Norway; a plant in Lorain, Ohio in the United States acquired in 1971; a 3-year-old factory in Brasov, Romania; and a new factory in Suzhou, China.

As a vertically integrated manufacturer, BecoTek controls its brass cage manufacturing process from the initial induction furnace melt through delivery of the finished product. BecoTek also supplies raw turned rings for bearing manufacturers to finish machining at the point of production.

Capacity is for finished cages up to 1900mm OD. Continuous cast brass tubing is used for sizes through 110mm OD, while sizes larger than 110mm OD use centrifugal cast tubing manufactured in rotating molds produced in-house by BecoTek.

A production advantage of brass is that it is extremely forgiving in terms of efficiency and the scrap material waste stream -- virtually all of the excess material, scrap, and machining chips are simply captured and remelted to start the process all over again.

Unlike the steel used for bearing races, brass' forgiving scrap situation allows further production efficiency -- oversize raw tubes can economically be turned into small finished parts, for example. Similarly, compared to bearing steel, machining brass allows extremely high feed rates with less wear and tear on cutting tools or equipment.

BecoTek's plants are ISO9001:2001 certified, and the company shows a 2005 quality audit by SKF coming in at a very high A - 1.3.