Product category:
General Machining Subcontracting Services
News Release from: HPC (Services) | Subject: Mill/turning large components
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 10 May 2005
Precision subcontractor gets bigger on
'one-hit'
Investment in a Nakamura WT250 mill/turn centre has enabled a UK precision subcontractor to provide 'single-hit' machining services on larger components.
Investment in a multi-axis Nakamura WT250 mill/turn centre at HPC (Services) of Ilkeston, UK, has enabled the precision subcontractor to develop its philosophy of providing 'single-hit' machining solutions on larger components which has already proven to be so successful with its seven Citizen CNC sliding head autos As a result, floor to floor times have been reduced by more than a third and production lead times slashed from weeks to days for a complex domestic mixer tap component
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 1 Oct 2003 at 8.00am (UK)
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Orders up, subcontractor buys more machine tools
With production demands doubling over the last 12 months, HPC Services of Ilkeston has spent some GBP 550,000 on five new machine tools and tooling and is employing an additional six machinists.
Outlines Paul Cobb, managing director: "The ability to produce a part in a single operation has to be the objective of any subcontract manufacturer in order to maintain competitiveness especially against the low labour rates enjoyed by suppliers in Eastern Europe and the Far East".
"We are finding customers in the UK are keen to buy locally and our order book demonstrates if you invest in the right technology, the work is there to be taken." Cobb cites the tap body now produced at the rate of 1,000 a month.
Previously, two operations were required using mill/turning techniques which took 10 minutes each.
Following the first operation, the body had to be re-located very accurately on a fixture to maintain strict angle hole breakthrough positions and form special sealing faces and diameters.
As a result, inspection of relationships of different features was always time consuming and could be problematical while lead times suffered because of setting and resetting of machines and extended inspection requirements.
This same part is now produced complete out of solid brass bar in a single operation that takes just three minutes.
But more importantly, the machine can now be set and run unmanned with total confidence.
Utilising main and secondary spindles and both top and bottom turrets, the different features are simultaneously machined and the flexibility of the machine configuration enables overlapping of tools which significantly lowers the time taken to produce the part.
Cobb has found the stability of the Nakamura enables the flexibility of the tooling arrangement on the two turrets to be fully exploited bearing in mind more than 24 tools are used to produce the brass component of which 10 are driven to machine face, internal and outside peripheral features on each part.
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