When Peterborough-based Rivercircle invested in one of the first XYZ UMC-5X gantry-style simultaneous five-axis machining centres just over 12 months ago, its ambition was to gain efficiency by transferring work previously performed on three- and four-axis machines.

Such was the company’s success in doing that, it has won numerous new contracts for five-axis work, resulting in the arrival of its second UMC-5X.
“We had no work that demanded full five-axis capability when we bought the first XYZ UMC-5X, but knew we could reduce set-up time and cycle time by moving work from other machines,” explains Paul Langan, Rivercircle’s production manager. “Furthermore, we had no expectation of keeping the machine busy 24/7, but as word spread, customers began to recognise the capability that we now had, and work kept coming in.”
The influx of orders from existing and new customers for dedicated five-axis work meant that additional capacity was required. However, due to the success of the first machine from XYZ, there was no reason for Langan to look anywhere else for the second.
“Work is continuing to move towards five-axis machining and, with the two XYZ UMC-5X machines, we can combine operations and become far more efficient, which will ultimately lead to more work as we are more competitive,” he says. “The ease of use of the machines, with the Heidenhain control that we are familiar with, along with support from XYZ Machine Tools, made our decision to double-up straightforward.”
The arrival of the second XYZ UMC-5X was enhanced by investment in several seats of Mastercam five-axis software to ensure there were no bottlenecks in processing the increased amount of work generated by the additional machining capacity.
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