Product category:
Casting and Forging Subcontracting Services
News Release from: M J Allen Group | Subject: Foundry, machining, assembly
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 27 July 2007
Pattern maker rises to general
engineering
An aggressive and forward looking strategy of engineering development and company acquisition has established an integrated engineering group covering design and development through to production.
Founded by Mike Allen as a foundry pattern-making operation in 1957, The M J Allen Group of Companies consists today of an integrated company UK group, which provides a wide range of engineering services Services include design and development, pattern making, iron and non-ferrous castings, comprehensive machine shop, sheet metal working machinery, metrology and tooling
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 30 Aug 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
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The group even produces architectural and street furniture.
It has customers throughout the world - Europe and USA - as well as in the UK.
Lately, a small forge and low volume CNC machining has been added to the foundry work to serve the specialist consumer market.
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The most recent development has been the contract to cast and machine an All-Wheel-Drive transmission system for Ford Transit - the latest succes in the group's dynamic history.
* About the Group - following pattern-making, M J Allen (Non-Ferrous Founders) was formed in 1964.
Precision castings are produced using the latest sand moulding techniques and gravity die processes to give the highest integrity.
Castings are produced up to 800kg (1763 lb) in aluminium and up to 200kg (441 lb) for copper-based castings.
In 1968, the group added on M J Allen (Iron Founders), which produces high quality medium and heavy grey iron castings to BS EN 1561 EN-GJL grades 150-300.
The foundry has a specialist expertise in complex core assembly work.
It also operates using a novel, 2.5 tonne, rotary furnace running on ecological reclaimed oil.
It is supplemented by an 370kg 800 lb) medium frequency electric furnace to produce BS EN 1563 EN-GJS grades of spheroidal graphite (SG) iron.
Air set resin sand is used in all moulds to ensure the highest quality castings in soundness, dimensional accuracy and surface finish.
The ferrous and non-ferrous foundry share chemical and mechanical analysis, dye penetrant, X-ray and ultrasonic inspection and pressure testing facilities.
* Machining cevelopment - having a very advanced pattern making facility and the ability to cast ferrous and non-ferrous metals to the highest quality standards, it was inevitable M J Allen's customers would ask for machining too.
Consequently, M J Allen created its own machining facility (M J Allen ENC) to meet the demand.
In combination with the pattern shop and foundries, or as a stand alone business, it has been developed to ensure the flexibility for prototyping, small batch and fixture work.
Dimensional accuracy is ensured by a fully equipped Inspection Department equipped with both conventional and CNC machines.
This has now been extended to include low volume production machining with the addition of a Heller CNC horizontal machining centre-based production cell to machine transmission case components for the Ford Transit All-Wheel-Drive transmission system.
This contract had followed on from the development of the transmission by Countytrac - acquired by the M J Allen group in 2000.
Countryac has continued under the Group's careful management to further develop its reputation for innovative and ingenious vehicle design and engineering.
With its reputation established for the conversion of conventional trucks to six-wheelers and the development of four-wheel drive tractors for Case New Holland, the company has gone on to design and develop the All-Wheel Drive transmission system for the Ford Transit now being manufactured by other companies within the group.
Alongside Countytrac, the group also owns National Auto Parts, known for the manufacture and supply of quality replacement clutch and brake discs for virtually every make and model of car and commercial light vehicle.
There is also the architectural and street furniture work of Mather and Smith, which has been producing elegant, high quality castings and installations for the architectural, restoration and conservation markets since the early part of the nineteenth century.
By applying modern foundry techniques to traditional designs, M J Allen has brought a previously unheard of flexibility to structural and decorative designs.
Amongst many prestigious contracts, the company has completed work for St John's Churchyard, London, the Winter Gardens in Eastbourne, the Canterbury bollards, Herne Bay rail posts and the railings in Brighton.
Not content to expand organically from its pattern making roots into related areas, the Group has also expanded into sheet metalworking machinery and tooling industry.
It owns the RMT-Gabro range of machines and the Hunton punch and die grinding machines.
M J Allen operates two overseas sales subsidiaries, Foremost Machinery Corporation of Illinois, USA, and the Rotterdam-based PAC in The netherlands.
The focus on quality and precision within everything iM J Allen does also led the group to an involvement with the metrology industry, where it owns the well-respected Verdict range of precision gauges.
Verdict equipment ranges from manufacturing dial test indicators to representing fully automatic measuring machines.
In addition, M J Allen Group owns Rydal Precision, which designs and manufactures replacement precision punches, dies and accessories for turret punch presses.
Tim Allen, son of founder Mike Allen, said: "We have grown in part organically, by seizing market opportunities as they were opened by one of our existing companies, and in part by acquisition, taking over companies which would complement one or more areas of the existing business.
We are opportunistic, but we are opportunistic in a planned and controlled way.
The recent contract for the Ford Transit All Wheel Drive transmission system is typical of the way we develop the businesses - we sought to expand our engineering activities into volume manufacturing, saw an opening and sought to develop it to its full potential.
This attitude has given us a very strong financial and management structure, and it is one which we trust will allow us to continue to expand the business in the foreseeable future.".
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