LTI Vehicles Limited is Britain's premier manufacturer of purpose built taxis and recognised as providing the UK with universally known "black cabs". The company employs over 450 people at its plant in Coventry, West Midlands. In the past the market for them has been predominately the UK, although recently enormous interest has been shown from overseas markets, the largest of which is the United States.

The company prides itself on the robust design of its hand-built vehicles which are renowned for longevity and the ability to cover hundreds of thousands of miles in a lifetime. The vehicles produced undergo a very intensive quality control regime and complete audit checks as part of its procedures. This includes heavy reliance upon torque control products supplied by Crane Electronics Limited.

Launched in 2002, the latest model is the TX11. All threaded fasteners employed on the taxi, including those used in the suspension, axles, steering and wheel hubs as well as those in the interior including seat anchorages and seat belts are initially torqued with conventional click type wrenches. All fastenings are then inspected in a defined sequence with Crane's digital inspection wrench with an easy to read display.

LTI's two main criteria for choosing the Crane's digital torque wrench were ease of use and traceability.

As it is designed to be point of load insensitive and the angle can be preset, LTI can be assured of correct measurement however the digital wrench is held and how much force individual operators are applying to the wrench. The reported value showing HI/OK/LO indications - is independent of the actual movement of the digital wrench.

Furthermore, two hundred readings with date and time stamp can be stored by the digital torque wrench. With the help of a PC cable, LTI downloads the data from the digital torque wrench to a PC where it is copied into their quality control database.

"The Pro-Wrench Audit is a very good tool that works well and gives very accurate readings" says Ron Wilkins, Production Manager, who has been with LTI since the 1950s.

LTI has selected Crane Electronics' products above all other suppliers for this critical work and as the market for their vehicles expands, there will be increasing reliance upon the versatile and high quality torque control solutions and support services that Crane Electronics is able to provide