Dugard is key to success for subcontractor

As a general subcontract manufacturer, Cannock-based Key Precision attended the Southern Manufacturing exhibition earlier this year to investigate new technology that could help drive the business forward. The company found the Dugard stand and the Hanwha range of sliding-head turning centres, and an order soon followed.

The subcontract manufacturing company showed a particular interest in the Dugard Hanwha XD38I, a robust sliding-head machine with a bar capacity that is particularly large for the machine’s footprint.

Greg Jackson, engineering and quality director at Key Precision, says: “We were looking to expand our turning capacity by purchasing something with the flexibility of a sliding-head machine, but the capability of a fixed-head model. It was the relatively small footprint for the size of machine that attracted us to the Hanwha XD381, and the size of bar that we could accommodate.”

Looking at the type of parts the company is manufacturing on its new Dugard Hanwha XD38II sliding-head turning centre, Jackson adds: “At the moment we’re machining parts of over 35 mm diameter, but we’re a typical subcontractor, so we make components for cars, planes, trains and, at present, quite a lot for the agricultural industry. This involves machining harder steels such as EN19 and EN24.”

The rigidity of the new machine is already creating savings at Key Precision.

“We’ve seen tool life savings of 25-35% using the Hanwha XD38II when we produce parts that we’ve cut many times before on other machines,” states Jackson.

Concluding on the installation, he says: “The machine has been working for six full weeks, running day and night and even over the weekends. It hasn’t missed a beat.”
For further information www.dugard.com

Join the MTI Pavilion at UMEX 2022

MTI is inviting pre-owned machine tool dealers in Europe to join the established and successful MTI Pavilion at the UMEX 2022 exhibition (25-27 August, New Delhi, India). MTI is the official partner for UMEX, which this year will be the 17th edition of the show. UMEX 2022 will run concurrently with five other complementary exhibitions, serving up Asia’s biggest business carnival for the machinery, manufacturing and metal industries.

UMEX 2022 provides a unique opportunity to sell or buy all pre-owned metal-cutting and metal-forming machine tools to the rapidly growing marketplace in India. The exhibition is co-sponsored by Ministry of Steel, Ministry of External Affairs and the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, and supported by the World Metal Forum. To be a part of the MTI Pavilion at UMEX 2022, please get in touch today as exhibition space is allotted on ‘first-come, first-served basis’.
For further information bob@machinerytradeinternational.com

Discovering CMZ: Olympians in the making

CNC lathe and turning centre manufacturer CMZ might have taken the plunge with that headline, but the company says it never spoke a truer word. When CMZ stopped to think about it; the surface area of all of its manufacturing plants exceeds the size of 32 Olympic swimming pools. All of the company’s strategic plans aim at increasing its production capacity. After setting up new manufacturing and assembly plants, CMZ’s production muscle keeps getting stronger.

Some of those ‘swimming pools’ are occupied by the company’s two assembly plants. The longest-serving of those two is located at CMZ’s central headquarters in Zaldibar. Three lathes per day leave the plant, delivered to different clients spread out mainly across Europe. The Seuner plant opened its doors in 2015. It is in this facility that CMZ puts together large lathes of the TD series, without doubt marking a watershed moment in its production process.

CMZ’s philosophy is based on ‘homemade’; the company likes to control each stage of the manufacturing process. It believes that by doing this, the end result is better quality as CMZ has greater control over production, from start to finish. The company clearly saw that putting this motto into practice meant operating with its own manufacturing plants. Precitor, Meydi, Mecaninor and now Neoprec and Cafisur, are further best proof of this strategy.

Between CMZ’s machining plants, electrical cabinet assembly plants and its own industrial sheet metal business, which produces covers for the lathes, the company can say that it controls the process with a product that is 90% its own.
For further information www.cmz.com

Okuma set out plans for AMB 2022

Okuma Deutschland GmbH, the German representative of CNC machine tool manufacturer Okuma Corporation Japan, is travelling with its metalworking technologies to AMB 2022 in Stuttgart on 13-17 September. Apart from the LU3000EX, an innovative machine tool for simultaneous four-axis turning, Okuma will show the proven LB3000 lathe, a machine that offers maximum automation in association with the Armroid jointed-arm robot.

Due to its heavy and robust construction, generously dimensioned flat-bed guides and high-torque drives, the LU3000EX is optimally suited for workpieces with a large L/D ratio, as well as for materials that are difficult to machine. Apart from that, the lathe shows its real advantage when using two turrets that work synchronously with double feed or simultaneously. As a result, users can reduce cutting times by up to 50%, reports Okuma, while times per piece and production costs can be cut significantly. This means that the investment in the second turret usually pays for itself after about six months.

In addition, Okuma’s own OSP control system ensures easy operation and simplifies dialogue programming of the LU3000EX.

With the LB3000 Armroid, Okuma will present a universal lathe with a fully integrated robot arm. This successful lathe is particularly suited to the production of universal turning parts and the complete machining of complex workpieces in small and medium batch sizes.

Combining it with the fully integrated Armroid jointed-arm robot enables automated operation, as the robot can load and unload the machine, and perform other important tasks. The user-friendly robot control with Okuma’s proven OSP control system automatically calculates the fastest collision-free path for the Armroid.
For further information http://amb-2022.okuma.eu

CIRC progresses with sliding-head lathe

Tom Pearce started his own business, CIRC Manufacturing in Westbury, Wiltshire in 2016. Current CNC capacity at the company includes a vertical machining centre and two fixed-head lathes, all pre-owned, and three Citizen Cincom sliding-head lathes also purchased second-hand due to financial constraints during the start-up phase. His stated aim is to gravitate towards using more of the latter machines to produce complex, small to medium diameter, high added value components.

In 2019 Pearce bought a 1995-built Cincom L20-VII slider with a 3 m bar magazine sight-unseen for £4000 from a website and used his engineering skills to refurbish it himself. He did not feel sufficiently confident to commission it, so asked Citizen Machinery UK to align the bar feeder, bolt down the machine and check the axis movements. The company was very receptive and promptly sent in an engineer to complete the work.

A year later, Pearce again approached Citizen Machinery UK directly for a machine with C-axis spindles and higher speed driven tooling. The supplier offered a K16E-VII built in 2011, a 16 mm capacity slider that ticked the right boxes and is one of the fastest lathes that Citizen has ever manufactured.

A copper contact pin, a development part that was previously produced on the L20-VII, saw the cycle time fall threefold from 60 to 20 seconds using the K16E-VII. The contract has since expanded and the subcontractor is now producing a family of pins in long runs for a customer in the electrical industry.

In January 2022 Pearce bought a two-year-old Citizen Cincom L20-VIIILFV, again on the open market, and achieved another step change in productivity. The first job put on the machine was the production of 20,000 stainless steel gland nuts of 22.22 mm diameter for an electrical equipment manufacturer.
For further information www.citizenmachinery.co.uk