Product category:
Horizontal machining centres (HMC)
News Release from: NCMT | Subject: Okuma twin-pallet, horizontal machining centre
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 24 March 2005
HMC investment brings in the customers
"Not only are customers and prospects impressed by good quality plant on the shop floor, but our own people are equally pleased to see a high level of investment," said a contractor.
Alex Kitchen, managing director of Bolton subcontractor, Velden Engineering (UK) , bought his second Okuma twin-pallet, horizontal machining centre (HMC) in October 2004 through sole UK agent, NCMT He installed the previous one, which also had half-metre-cube capacity, 20 years ago and describes it as an excellent machine which still produces components to high accuracy every day
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 22 May 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
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"Machining centres and lathes on our shop floor from this Japanese manufacturer are Velden's best sales tool," he said, "Because when customers, especially blue chip companies, see that you are investing in high quality machines, they know you are serious and in for the long haul.
For instance, a UK foundry for which we carry out value-added machining invited one of their Swedish customers to visit Velden recently to explain that our latest Okuma would be used to machine their parts.
It helped the foundry to keep the contract, which was at risk of being placed elsewhere, and in turn meant that we kept the business.
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"Not only are customers and prospects impressed by good quality plant on the shop floor, but our own people are equally pleased to see a high level of investment.
It engenders loyalty and minimises loss of valuable shop floor experience through staff turnover." Kitchen points out that the GBP 300,000 he spent on the latest Okuma MA500HB HMC, including tooling for the 60-station magazine, was double what he might have paid for a machine of similar capacity from some other suppliers.
He argues, however, that paying half the money can mean double the trouble and points out that in five years, when the latest Okuma HMC has paid for itself, the machine will be making money for decades but costing very little to run, like the last one.
An outspoken defender of British manufacturing, Kitchen went on to comment that, with more and more work being lost to subcontractors in China and other low-wage economies, firms in the UK and other developed economies are often reluctant to commit themselves to extra metalcutting capacity, especially high quality machines.
However, in his opinion they should be investing, as there is still a lot of business out there for UK firms.
"To be competitive these days it is crucial to run a lean, agile operation - those that don't will probably not remain in business anyway - but investing in modern, top-end plant is also key to driving down production costs and keeping work in Britain," advised Kitchen.
"Machine shops in China are full of quality plant like Okumas, not just clapped out mills and radial drills that the rest of the world has finished with, so 'UK plc' should wise up and invest in the best machine tools that it can afford." It is true that many long runs have disappeared overseas, such as the vast majority of 750,000 bearing housings that Velden was producing annually, which are now made in China.
However, subcontractors like Velden often win end-of-run and start-up quantities.
They also provide contingency back-up for British OEMs should anything go wrong at the overseas supplier, or if extra components are needed urgently.
In addition, contracts for supply of anything fewer than 30,000 are fair game for UK subcontractors, as their foreign competition are rarely interested in quantities lower than this.
Velden, which employs less than 50 staff and turns over in excess of GBP 2 million annually.
It prides itself on providing short lead times and frequently offers OEMs design advice that reduces unit production cost.
Continued Kitchen, "I have known OEMs that thought they could justify purchasing a machine like our latest Okuma, as they could see three months' work ahead and assumed that orders for their product would continue at the same rate.
Even if orders tailed off, they felt confident of selling spare capacity to other firms on a subcontract basis.
"In the event, there was not enough production of their own to finance the machine and they were not geared up to win subcontract work as they only had experience in making their own sort of components, so they got into trouble.
Companies generally put out awkward jobs that they have difficulty machining in-house, which compounds the problem.
Using a reliable subcontractor with a good track record and a broad range of experience is the right way for small to medium size OEMs to go." As with all key machines in the factory, Velden currently operates the MA500HB round the clock from Monday to Thursday and over a single 12-hour shift on Friday and Saturday, which is more than sufficient to finance the machine and still leaves spare capacity for expansion.
The company is systematically loading the HMC with a mix of regular contracts and urgent, higher added-value work and aims at two or three changeovers per week.
Batch sizes range from 20 to several thousand and in-cycle, multiple component loading on cube fixtures maximises production output.
Compared with its 20-year-old counterpart, the latest HMC is more eco-friendly, faster and capable of even higher accuracy machining, regularly producing parts to around 10 microns on dimension.
One recent job involved four-sided machining of high voltage switchgear chambers on which the flange faces needed to be milled flat to within 15 microns with a surface finish better than 0.8 micron Ra to provide a gas-tight seal.
A more open-tolerance job is milling of toughened steel chain links for a concrete-making machine that Mr Kitchen suggests would be difficult to accomplish on a less rigid, lower power machining centre.
Alongside the MA500HB machining centre, Velden also invested in a new Okuma LB300-M turning centre with driven tooling, bringing the company's investment in machine tools from NCMT last year to nearly GBP 500,000.
Kitchen expects to invest in another machining centre during 2005, this time a vertical-spindle model, and unsurprisingly has already selected an Okuma MA550VB. Request a free brochure from NCMT ...
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