A Harper, Sons and Bean was a successfully Iron founders established at Dudley in 1826. During the great war beans had become a major munitions supplier specialising in heavy shell casings. As the end of the war approached the companies managing director John Harper (Jack) Bean, was concerned for the companies future, during the war the company had developed a huge production capacity at its two foundries and new peace time products would be needed if the company was to survive. In 1918 the company made the decision to move into motor manufacturing, the following year it secured the rights to the pre war "Perry Car" which was to reenter production as the "Perry Bean".

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Jack Harper Bean had visited the US in the months following the end of the war and developed ambitious plans for the car factory at the companies Tipton site. Which he intended to produce 10,000 cars a year, by late 1919 he had purchased modern machine tools from America to equip the new factory and the "Perry Bean" was ready for its launch at the Savoy hotel in London during November of that year. The intention was for the cars to be assembled at the Tipton factory and car bodies to be manufactured at Dudley, but the latter factory couldn't cope with demand so external body makers had to be used to complete the 80 cars a week leaving the factory.

For a while the company was more profitable than the dominant Morris Car Company but it's fortunes soon changed, by 1921 the entire Motor industry was in recession and the company was forced into receivership. Jack Harper Bean resigned and the company was in the hands of administrators for two years until a financing deal backed by Hadfield's a Sheffield steel maker and number of banks allowed the company to discharge its debts and Jack Bean returned to the manage the company. Bean's most successful car the "Bean 14" was launched the same year a total of 4,000 model 14's were produced in the following six years. In 1926 Hadfield's took full control of the company and renamed it "Beans Cars" but by end of the following year Jack Bean left the company and from then on the cars were branded as "Hadfield Beans". The "Beans" name was fairly well known during the late 1920's Australian explorer Francis Birtles made a number of epic journeys in Beans, he became the first man to drive between Britain and Australia in a model 14 during 1927.

Hadfield's experience in the car business was not a happy one, they modified the model 14 in 1929 with a new engine and breaking system but it was not successful. By the end of the year the company ceased car production completely. Although a small number of commercial vehicles continued to roll out of the Tipton factory for another two years. Hadfield's restructured Beans into a general engineering and foundry business producing components for other car manufacturers, in 1933 the company name was changed to "Beans Industries" dropping all reference to the car business. The Tipton Factory had one further flirtation with car manufacture when it was chosen to hand build Captain George Eyston's world land speed record breaking car Thunderbolt, which took the record land speed record on November 19, 1937 setting a speed of 311 MPH over the one mile distance.

Beans Industries manufactured large diesel engines for the bus and lorries along with a wide range of iron castings for the car manufactures throughout the the 1930's. The Second World War did little to effect the work at Beans which continued to produce lorry engines and parts for army trucks.

In 1956 Bean Industries was purchased by Standard-Triumph to become the in house manufacturer of castings for the Triumph and Standard motor ranges. During Standard-triumph's ownership the unions at Tipton negotiated an 18 pint a day beer allowance for each foundry man. Temperatures with in the foundry building would often reach 130°F so it was important to keep drinking, Midlands Mild was the obvious choice for a hard working metal worker it's low alcohol content supposedly allowed you to drink all day in the high temperatures with out becoming intoxicated, so it became the apprentices first job each day to go and collect the first beer issue at 7.30am.

In 1960 Standard-Triumph was taken over by Leyland Motors which itself became part of British Leyland in 1968. throughout its years with British leyland the foundry retained a degree of independence by 1975 it was known as "Beans Engineering" producing engine blocks and other castings for Leyland lorries and coaches. The giant British Leyland group was broken up and privatised by the conservative government in 1988, Beans itself was bought out by its management team. Following the management buyout the company went on to buy another British Motor Icon the Reliant company famous for the Robin three wheeler. The purchase of Reliant had little impact on the Tipton foundry which was mostly employed making engine blocks and parts for larger car manufacturers like Rover and Ford. In 1995 Reliant went bust and took Beans Engineering into receivership for the second time in its history.

The tipton foundry was bought out of receivership by the German based engineering group Eisenwerk Bruhl who invested 7 million pounds into the Tipton turning it into a state of the art foundry capable of producing 40,000 tonnes of cylinder blocks, cylinder heads and cast iron components each year on a fully automated production line. However the heavy investment in the UK foundry business left it considerable debt and unable to operate effectively within the market. In 2002 the business by that time known as Bruhl UK was bought out by its management and renamed Ferrotech. Despite having the companies debts written off as part of the deal and finding themselves one of the most modern and efficient foundries in europe Ferrotech had maintained very close links to the Rover Group at Longbridge, they were the foundries major customer when Rover was forced in to administration in April of 2005 Ferrotech struggled to find customers to take there place and followed in to bankruptcy during August of the same year.