Three turning centres give a racing advantage

Three CNC turning centres installed at a motor sport Formula One's workshop have produced a ten fold improvement over their previous manufacturing capability.

Three Mori Seiki NT 4250 DCG machines and one NL2000Y installed at the Honda Racing F1 Team's headquarters in Brackley, Northamptonshire, UK have produced a ten fold improvement on their previous manufacturing capability.

Machine and fabrication manager, Honda Racing F1 Team, Richard Smith said that the complete refurbishment of the machine shop was driven by three factors.

1 - A need to cut work in progress (WIP or production inventory).

2 - To foster the creativity of the skilled engineers in the workshop.

3 - To manufacture more complex components in-house through migration to 5-axis machining.

Smith said, "We had already exceeded the capabilities of our existing Hitachi Seiki machines through the skills of our workforce.

As soon as our selection team saw the performance of the NT machines at Mori Seiki's Paris Technical Centre we knew they were the right choice for us".

* Eliminating hand finishing - during the evaluation, the Honda F1 Racing Team used the machining of an axle as a 'benchmark'.

The roughing cycle was reduced from 8h to 3.5h on the NT.

Smith continued, "The mix of milling and turning in our components is a 75/25 split towards milling.

We needed to achieve this on one machine to reduce our WIP.

The power and rigidity of the milling head on the NT far exceeded that of the other machines we considered." The company has also seen the quality of its finished parts improve with the introduction of the three NT machines.

These turning centres produce the surface finish demanded by the industry, cutting rework rates down to 0.3% and eliminating the need for hand finishing.

By combining operations on the NT, the team has been able to reduce the number of secondary operations and move towards 'one hit' machining.

Additional operations are now mainly confined to manual and EDM, which has a significant impact on WIP.

Furthermore, the company is changing the profile of its subcontracting, putting out low cost items and bringing high cost items back in house, thanks to the 5-axis capabilities of the machines.

Compatibility and flexibility were also important factors for the company.

Having three identical machines with a common fixturing system allows jobs to be allocated to the next available machine.

Each machine is fitted with a 100 pocket automatic tool changer (ATC).

By loading it with families of cutters, the team can manufacture its range of components without switching tools in the ATC, thus minimising the setup and changeover times between jobs, further adding to flexibility.

Smith added, "Batch sizes are small and normally less than 20.

We record metrics for setup cycles and run cycles which suit the reactive nature of our business.

Commonality of tooling reduces setup times and we currently average 87h utilisation per week on each machine across the workshop".

* Short learning curve - the learning curve was far shorter than expected, giving the Honda F1 Racing Team's skilled machinists an opportunity to develop new production methods to take full advantage of the capabilities of the NT, said Mori Seiki to manufacturingtalk.com.

Smith said, "We are migrating to 100% 5-axis machining on our jobs.

The capabilities of the NT will give our machinists the scope to develop their skills without being limited by the machine tool." Routinely, the company is reporting that it can take heavier cuts, achieve much better repeatability with the NT's rigid box in box construction and the massive V shaped slideway on the Y-axis.

Collaborative working with suppliers is important to the Honda F1 Racing Team, so the support available to the company from Japan and the Paris Technical Centre was crucial to its decision to select Mori Seiki as its preferred supplier.

Smith concluded, "The biggest driver for us was the milling capability of the NT, it is as substantial as a 5-axis milling machine.

Mori Seiki was able to supply machines to fit all our needs.

Their performance is critical to us, enabling us to respond to the demands of the racing circuit and manufacture a greater range of components as well as parts which, previously, we could not make ourselves.".

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