Product category:
CNC lathes
News Release from: Colchester-Harrison | Subject: Tornado 220M CNC lathe
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 17 April 2003
Investment in latest CNC turning keeps
the work in
The subcontract metalcutting business is changing fast with ever-growing pressures on lead time reduction and delivery and tighter margins. To stay, you have to invest, says a subcontractor.
According to Hull-based precision machinists Fisadco, the subcontract metalcutting business is changing fast with ever-growing pressures on lead time reduction and delivery, tighter margins and a more focused attitude towards quality Managing director Daren Smith confirms this: "Buyers of subcontracting services are driving suppliers to be like a cash point in the High Street on delivery - they expect to put the order in the wall with the bits coming straight out of the tray in the bottom! We have even had customers standing by a machine and taking the parts away as they are produced," he says
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 5 Jul 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
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Explaining his reaction to the "McDonald's drive thro" experience of modern machining demands he maintains that if a subcontract machinist is not investing in new equipment at the moment - his days are numbered.
"It's the only way to counter the attack on the business from all sides," to which he qualifies that his delivery times have been cut by half over the last three years.
His 30 man company is located just off the main shopping area in Hull and was the first in the UK to install the latest driven tool three-axis Colchester Tornado 220M from Colchester Sales.
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Two two-axis 'lights-out' turning cells have very quickly taken a central role in a GBP 500,000 automated machining initiative designed to present cost-effective manufacturing techniques to SMEs.
Tornado CNC lathes get driven tooling
Colchester's top-selling Tornado slant bed CNC lathe is now available with driven tools. The three-axis 'M' version has six driven positions on the Sauter 12 station turret.
Already Daren Smith is checking off the bonus points of the latest Tornado against his first-ever CNC lathe a Tornado 200 he installed some four years ago following his leadership with financial director Eric Steele to carry out a management buyout of the company.
The bar fed 220M has already decimated lead times by its ability to combine what were several secondary operations into a single cycle.
Says Daren Smith: "We have found production times on these types of parts have been cut by between 60 and 70 per cent." He also quotes a batch of 30 hydraulic nuts which he now machines complete in an hour ready for despatch.
Previously the Tornado 200, which he maintains is still in excellent condition and has never had a mechanical failure, would have taken some 20 per cent longer and a capstan lathe method about a day and half to machine.
He argues strongly for investment which he embarrassingly maintains has been the source of the company trebling its turnover in six years.
"This has allowed us to leap-frog competitors who hold onto 'paid-for' machines which reduce the hourly rate but are no longer accurate enough, quick enough to change over or fast enough to keep the buyers of today happy." The added rigidity of the newly developed 220M with its advantageous Duo-stable base design compared to the 200, not only means an increase in speeds and feed rates allowing some stainless steel parts to be produced about 15 per cent quicker, but he maintains: "The consistency of production is so obvious now.
Start from cold and the improvements to the thermal stability of machine are immediate.
You may have to tweak offsets a little for the first couple of parts but from then on it will run right through our nine hour shift." The machine is set on run by Mark, the company's third year apprentice.
This year Fisadco added three more to the workforce as a key skills development policy of the company.
So quick was Mark to pick-up the machine that within three days of installation he was really exploiting it even though he had little detailed knowledge of milling.
"We quickly began taking on work we could never have dreamed of even quoting for and this was from new as well as existing customers," says Daren Smith.
"One of the spin-offs we never thought of was consumable tooling.
Because the machine is so stable our consumable tool bill is falling month on month.
The Tornado 200 was brilliant when we started and its still good even though it has been worked hard.
While it has never let us down, it won't match the 220M for productivity," he insists.
The 12 station VDI turret Tornado 220M has six driven tool positions with a full C-axis and a disc brake fitted to the main spindle to enable heavy duty drilling and milling cycles to high orders of positional accuracy to be carried out from the 3.7kW, 4,000 revs/min tool-drive.
The new construction methods used on the machine give an improved damping characteristic of some 25 per cent reflecting its 50 per cent increase in weight over the Tornado 200.
It has a larger headstock and stiffer five-bearing spindle with wider, lower and heavier slideways.
Fisadco was originally founded in 1927 producing machinery for skinning and filleting herrings for the fish industry of the North East.
As the fishing industry started to decline in the 1980s, the company went into the general fabrication business which led to a management buyout in 1996.
Three years ago with 16 people, the company moved into the current 11,000 (square feet) facility in Raywell Street, Hull and since then business has continued to grow year on year to bring the current headcount to 30 people and a turnover treble that at the time of the buyout.
Daren Smith describes how most customers tend to be local to Hull but are also located as far south as London and include well-known names such as British Aerospace, Sumitomo, Unilever and Shiphams for which Fisadco supply one-off prototypes to larger volumes in batches of 3,000 or so.
Materials are also diverse covering plastics, all types of steels including some exotics, aluminium, copper and bronze.
Because of the nature of the business Daren Smith does not know what orders for machined parts are coming next.
He has a wide range of machine tools all bought from new including the two Tornados, a Harrison Alpha and Colchester Mascot three metre bed centre lathe and two large CNC bed mills and CNC machining centres.
Indeed, now the three-axis driven tool Tornado is on board, a massive influx of new turned work has come from existing customers requiring flat milling, keywaying all types of drilling and tapping to which Daren Smith adds: "With the MBF 1000 bar feed package on the 220M and the consistency of machining, we set for a job and leave it unmanned until the material is used up or it stops because the batch counter says we are finished." To the future, the Tornado 220M will be engaged in chucking as well as up to 65 mm bar turning which will further open the market for Fisadco.
Another machine could be on the cards, to which Daren Smith adds: "If we do not keep investing, then we stand still, and our competitors will be after our customers.".
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