Client partner: Leyland DAF
Industry: Commercial automotive / OEM manufacturing
What we make: Precision metal stamping and welding
Highlights:
- Quality PPM score: 6 (threshold: under 10)
- Delivery performance (OTIF): 99.87% across 213 deliveries
- Volume: Up from 55,191 to 334,145 parts
The award
Flawless quality and on-time delivery are hard enough in OEM automotive supply. Add rapid growth and it gets harder still.
Frank Dudley Ltd (FDL) has won its fourth consecutive DAF Supplier Gold Award, for performance throughout 2025. Over that time it grew supply volume by more than 500% and the number of part numbers it makes grew too. Defects stayed well below the industry threshold, and On-Time, In-Full (OTIF) delivery came in at near-perfect.
The challenge: feeding high-volume JIT lines
Commercial vehicle plants run on Just-In-Time (JIT) production, so supply chain problems cost money straight away. One late delivery or one faulty batch can stop an assembly line.
Growth makes that risk worse. More orders and more part numbers put pressure on quality control and project management, and that’s usually where things start to slip.
The bar for the DAF Supplier Gold Award is high: a Parts Per Million (PPM) defect rate consistently under 10. Frank Dudley had to ramp up output for Leyland DAF and hold that line while it did.
The approach: a 5-step project framework
Frank Dudley ran every stamping and welding job through its structured 5-step project management framework.
1. Consultation
and planning
Understanding your requirements, specifications and production goals.
2. Design and
engineering support
Working closely with customers to optimise manufacturability and performance.
3. Manufacturing
and production
High-quality precision engineering using advanced manufacturing processes.
4. Quality assurance
Rigorous inspection and testing procedures to ensure complete compliance.
5. Delivery and
ongoing support
Reliable supply and continued customer partnership throughout the project life cycle.
- Standardised processes: Every new part number came online with a controlled manufacturing workflow.
- Tooling and welding precision: Batch press runs and welded assemblies were repeatable, run after run.
- Quality checks: Active verification kept defect rates comfortably under the 10 PPM limit.
- Delivery planning: Production runs were lined up with Leyland DAF’s schedules across 213 separate consignments.
The results
| Metric | DAF Gold Award standard | Frank Dudley (2025) |
| Quality PPM score | < 10 PPM | 6 PPM |
| Delivery OTIF | Target: high consistency | 99.87% (213 deliveries) |
| Part numbers supplied | N/A | 68 |
| Total annual volume | N/A | 334,145 parts |
Volume: Supply grew from 55,191 units at the first award to 334,145 in 2025. That’s more than five times as much.
- Range: The part catalogue went from 13 part numbers to 68.
- Awards: Four Gold Awards in a row, each judged against audited performance standards.
What’s next:
Frank Dudley isn’t stopping there. The company has set ambitious targets to further expand its operational capacity and bolster quality benchmarks across all production lines:
- Part Numbers: Expanding product variety to 82 part numbers, up from the current 68.
- Annual Output: Scaling total manufacturing volume to 404,442 units per year.
- Delivery & Quality Standards: Targeting a 100% On-Time, In-Full (OTIF) delivery rate while maintaining an ultra-strict defect threshold of under 10 PPM (parts per million).
‘Growth is only worth celebrating if the standards hold.’
Need a stamping and welding partner you can rely on?
Whether you’re reviewing your current supply chain or scaling up production of high-precision components, Frank Dudley Ltd can help you do it with the standards intact.
