Subcontract machining with CNC sliding heads

Three additional Citizen CNC sliding head automatic lathes have been installed by Unicut to keep pace with its subcontract engineering order book.

Unicut Precision has installed three additional Citizen CNC sliding head automatic lathes at its Welwyn Garden City facility and recruited three additional machine setters to meet a 25 per cent increase on its current order book.

Says Jason Nicholson, joint managing director: "We came into 2007 with the biggest contract order book ever and still have quotations awaiting purchase decisions from UK and overseas customers." The GBP250,000 machine installation made by NC Engineering of Watford, for two Citizen K16-VIIs and a Citizen L20-VIII are for a single aerospace contract from America to machine components from special steels.

The machines are running around the clock and unmanned at night.

Unicut already has three of the latest versions of Citizen L20 machines, and two of the previous generation Citizen L20 machines that are now four years old.

Over the last five years, Unicut Precision has installed 21 new machines of which 16 have been Citizen.

By maintaining a policy of production equipment being under five years old, Unicut Precision has been able to be very competitive when quoting for new work and maintain high levels of quality and delivery to customers.

Said Charles Kenny, joint managing director: "As we are able to run around the clock and produce components using our mill/turn capability to create an across the board 'one-hit' machining strategy, we can ensure relationships of different features of a component are easily maintained." He follows on to say "Our single cycle operations also mean production lead times are reduced that enables us to meet tight delivery targets.

Now with the installation of our OGP SmartScope programmable video based measuring centre, we are able to automatically measure and calculate SPC data on components, thus further increasing our productivity.".

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