Law Enforcement

FN Herstal, the world’s leading designer and manufacturer of small calibre firearms and integrated weapon systems, recently invested in the creation of its own clean-room production line for Surface Mounted Devices.

This guarantees availability of these elements that are critical for the development and production of its weapon systems such as deFNder® Land and Sea Remote Weapon Stations. This additional production capability meets the Belgian company’s continuous need for reliable supplies of small to medium series of PCBAs made to the highest production standards, with total quality control for absolute confidence, which was difficult to find.

The production line, located in the main FN Herstal manufacturing facility near Liege (Belgium) has been operating successfully full time for a year, meeting the needs of the company’s own R&D and manufacturing departments. The line, which is lead-free, electrostatic discharge safe, and meets EU health and safety regulations, is capable of small, medium and large production runs. It can deal with high levels of production changes and variability of components.

The production line has now reached cruising speed and FN Herstal has started to offer production of components for third parties. Manufacturers in fields such as defence, aerospace, automobile, rail, medical instruments, nuclear, to name just a few, have extremely stringent requirements similar to those for which the production line was set up.  They often also prefer to have a supplier based in Europe.

The reliability of the units manufactured is ensured by modern state-of-the-art equipment for both production and highly detailed quality control.

With this production line, and its expertise in Surface Mounted Devices FN Herstal can offer a variety of valuable services, including design-to-order of circuit boards, production of small, medium and large quantities of components guaranteed to the highest standards of quality, traceability thanks to serial numbered parts, and fully predictable availability from a European source.

About

Through the FN, Browning, Winchester* and Noptel brands, the Herstal Group is a world leader in small arms and light weapons. Its products are recognised worldwide for their reliability and innovation, and are used by armed forces, law enforcement agencies, hunters and sports shooters.

Headquartered in Herstal and owned by the Walloon Region (Belgium), the Group generated sales of 956 million euros in 2022 and employs 3,000 people through its subsidiaries in Belgium, the United States, Portugal, the United Kingdom and Finland.

FN Herstal’s mission, more specifically, is to design, develop and manufacture a full range of innovative solutions at the leading edge of technology, centered on small arms and their ammunition, that meet the specific requirements of Defence and Security markets today and in the future.

The FN Herstal product range includes small arms, Less Lethal systems, and integrated weapon systems for air, sea and land applications, remote weapon stations, small calibre ammunition, and solutions that harness modern technology to enhance the capabilities of the end user.

FN Herstal is based near Liège in Belgium, with three fully owned subsidiaries: FN America (USA), FNH UK (UK) and Noptel (Finland).

W: www.fnherstal.com.