Product category:
General Machining Subcontracting Services
News Release from: Hemlock Engineering | Subject: Multi-task machining
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 15 March 2005
Subcontractor rapidly expands M-C park
Within a month of installing its 15th machining centre, a five-axis VMC, a UK subcontractor ordered two additional vertical machining centres for immediate delivery.
Within a month of installing the 15th Haas, a five-axis vertical machining centre, Paul Cobb, managing director of precision subcontractor Hemlock Engineering of Stapleford, Nottingham ordered two additional VF vertical machining centres for immediate delivery The two Haas machines, worth some 130,000 (pounds sterling) as a package, are both 12,000 rev/min VF-2SS versions with four-axis capability to enable three-face component machining in a single cycle
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 22 Jul 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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Both machines are to be installed alongside existing four and five-axis Haas vertical machining centres to create two machining cells.
Such is the take-up in the business for Hemlock that January was a record month following the employment of three further operators and the setting up of 24 hour round the clock shifting on certain key machines.
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Combining up to eight separate production operations into one or two unmanned machining centre cycles is a target set by a subcontractor to increase cost-effectiveness.
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By setting up four 'lean assembly cells a subcontractor will be producing 19 completed units a day for direct to line assembly, having raised productivity by 30%.
A further three people are currently being recruited to man the company's lean assembly cells that came on stream in December and was immediately rewarded by an increase in demand from the customer.
The lean cells are for direct to line delivery of printer assemblies that superseded a previous contract to supply 150 machined components per unit that Hemlock used to produce and despatch to the customer for assembly.
Further capital expenditure orders have now been placed by Cobb in January for a SolidWorks CADCAM system to increase flexibility to work with customers and improve throughput of Hemlock's prototyping, pre-production and production services.
The integrated CADCAM includes off-line programming seats for five-axis machining cycles.
A further investment in a mill/turn centre to complement its existing multi-axis Nakamura WT250 is about to be made and new software for production scheduling, order management and accounts is being installed.
During 2004, Hemlock invested around GBP 500,000 in new production technology.
According to Cobb: "It's just amazing the benefits you start to accrue and how the thought patterns of the whole business can change when you can invest and apply the right technology to do the job".
"One of the biggest benefits is that we can react very quickly".
"We have lost the restraint on the business of having to waste valuable time trying to utilise existing equipment that may not be the best to do the job.".
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