As an OEM specialising in the design and production of equipment for oil heating and diesel tank applications, as well as being a subcontract engineering firm, Atkinson Equipment has reduced lead-times following investment in a Brother Speedio U500Xd1 five-axis machining centre equipped with Tezmaksan CubeBox automation from Whitehouse Machine Tools.

Adam Walford, engineering group sales manager at Atkinson Equipment, says: “We’ve typically halved lead-times from 12 weeks down to six for complex subcontract parts and reduced them even further when making components for our own products, say from a month down to one week.

He continues: “Since automating the milling side of the business, we’ve also seen a reduction in the bottleneck we previously had when parts arrive from our turning section for prismatic machining. Our ability to get product out of the door to our customers is through the roof. It’s helping us to win new business in the subcontract area, as well as to grow our OEM division.”

Based in Wiltshire, Atkinson Equipment is required to manufacture large volumes of parts for its own refuelling and liquid transfer products, which it has been doing for over 50 years. It also needs to produce a high mix of smaller volumes for the subcontracting division, which has been running for half that time, but which is growing rapidly. This dual role places significant demands on its manufacturing capabilities and was pivotal in the investment in the automated Brother-Tezmaksan cell.

“It was quite daunting at first taking on a completely new piece of technology like this, but we were confident with the support that we would get from Whitehouse and their ability to guide us through the process to where we are now.”

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