Record £26m year at PP C&A

PP Control & Automation is on course for a record year after increasing annual sales to £26 million, just 12 months after attracting investment from Ardenton Capital.

The strategic manufacturing outsourcing specialist has seen demand for its solutions continue to rise against a backdrop of economic uncertainty, with the West Midlands-based firm now working with over 25 of the world’s largest machinery builders.
Now employing more than 220 people at its 5500 sq m facility, PP C&A delivers added-value design, engineering and complex assemblies to clients involved in aerospace, food processing, machine tool, packaging, printing and other advanced technologies. With renewed financial backing from the Canadian-based investor, PP C&A has added £3m of turnover in the past 12 months, and is now exploring the possibility of future acquisitions and a joint venture to establish a manufacturing footprint in North America.
For further information www.ppcanda.com

Attracting Mexican firms to German technology

A total of 17 German machine-tool manufacturers arrived in Mexico recently to establish and cultivate close contacts. The VDW (German Machine Tool Builders’ Association) organised two technology symposia in Querétaro and Monterrey in the first week of December. Around 300 high-calibre customers took part in the events, which proved a resounding success.

Mexican demand for German machine tools has quadrupled since 2010, reaching approximately €372m last year. Germany has thus established itself as the third largest supplier to Mexican manufacturers after the USA and Japan. In addition to organising presentations, B2B meetings and two factory visits, the German companies also spent time familiarising themselves with processes in Mexico’s traditionally strong automotive and aerospace industries.
For further information www.vdw.de

Machining centre for blisks

Starrag’s NB 151 impeller and blisk machine made its UK public debut at the recent aerospace-focused ‘Inspiration through Innovation’ manufacturing best-practice event staged by Seco Tools. The new NB 151 could be seen performing the live machining of titanium and Inconel blisk segments as part of a comprehensive programme of best practice demonstrations and seminar presentations.

Starrag’s demonstration saw the twin-pallet NB 151 machining the segments in a single set-up, courtesy of specially-developed A and B rotary axes. The axes’ spindle movement allows the tool/cutting angle to be positioned relatively close to the workpiece, resulting in not only a more stable machining process, but a far more effective route to minimal cycle times.
Importantly, this improved accessibility to the workpiece is courtesy of a B-axis stroke of 280° which, together with the compact A axis and relatively slender spindle, enables the component to be accessed in all directions, even at the bottom of the Y-axis stroke.
As a result of the collaboration between Starrag, Open Mind and Seco, the demonstration highlighted an optimised machining solution that eliminates the traditional problems of short tool life and excessively long cycle times associated with difficult-to-machine materials such as titanium and Inconel.
For further information www.starrag.com

Dies and moulds in one set up

A prominent cornerstone of the Okuma trade fair booth at the recent EMO 2019 exhibition was taken up by the company’s large MCR-S double-column machining centre. The machine is predestined for the die and mould industry as it combines high productivity, dimensional accuracy and high surface quality, reports Okuma.

With these properties, the MCR-S can rough, finish and fine-finish a workpiece in a single set up. The machine’s accuracy relies on a number of hardware and software technologies. One of these technologies is a swivel image sensor that measures the tool’s cutting edge. As a result, tool change related cutting edge offsets can be reduced to less than 10 µm.
According to Okuma, surface quality is achieved with the company’s intelligent ‘Hyper-Surface’ technology. By automatically detecting and correcting errors in the machining data, the application creates extremely smooth surfaces that are said to rarely need manual post-processing.
The high manufacturing quality has a positive impact on the machine’s productivity. Pablo Liechti, product manager, provides an example: “We have a customer who saved 38 hours in total when machining a large die mould with the MCR-S. They benefit from a shorter finishing cycle, fewer hours spent on polishing and little need for matching the press dies to their counterparts.”
For further information www.okuma.eu

Cycle times slashed at Classic Components

As a specialist in producing one-off or low-volume development work, East Grinstead-based Classic Components is often called upon to turn work around at short notice, usually without any drawings.

As a long-term user of XYZ’s ProtoTRAK-controlled machine tools, their ease-of-use was familiar to managing director Malcolm Duffield, but the arrival of the latest RMX 3500 bed mill with new ProtoTRAK RMX control has been a revelation.
The advantages of the latest control on the RMX 3500 have helped Duffield achieve significant savings both in programming and cycle times.
“Moving from the old DPM control to the new RMX ProtoTRAK has been a step-change for me,” he says. “The time savings I’ve seen so far are thanks to innovations such as the adaptive material removal strategy and the ability to import DXF files.”
An example of the benefits of the DXF converter is in the production of sprockets for vintage aircraft. On his older machine, Duffield had to input every co-ordinate, which was time consuming both in terms of inputting and cross-checking the data. Now, it is simply a case of importing the DXF file and pressing cycle start.
“I’ve gone from what could have taken a couple of hours, down to a matter of minutes to start machining,” says Duffield.
One of the key new features of the RMX ProtoTRAK control for XYZ’s bed mills is adaptive material removal, which calculates the optimum tool path for the machining of pockets or ‘area clearance’. The savings can cut hours from cycle times, improve surface quality and improve tool life. For Classic Components, this feature has cut the cycle time on one particular part, a development of a toilet flush unit for an upmarket bathroom manufacturer, by 50%.
For further information www.xyzmachinetools.com