Amada award

Amada UK has been crowned ‘Large Employer of the Year 2017’ at the Worcestershire Apprenticeships Awards, where 300 people were in attendance. The award is seen as recognition for the company’s successful apprenticeship programme, which has been in place since 2006.

At present, Amada employs 17 apprentices, mostly in engineering, but also in accountancy and business administration schemes. The programme supports Amada UK’s mantra of “growing our own talent pool”, providing management candidates of the future with Amada ‘DNA’.
For further information www.amada.co.uk

Cold forming capabilities extended

Dawson Shanahan has further boosted its capabilities in cold forming by investing in a high-throughput Formax machine. The move takes the company’s investment in new machinery to £500,000 for the third year in a row.

Additional investments have been made in Dawson Shanahan’s turning, milling and grinding capabilities, as well as in metrology and cleaning systems. The Formax FX54M is a four-die, high-speed cold former that will extend the company’s capability in two ways: its increased size will allow Dawson Shanahan to make larger cold-formed parts; and its throughput of up to 190 pieces per minute will help raise overall production capacity.
For further information www.dawson-shanahan.co.uk

3D-printed gas turbine blade success

Siemens has received an award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) for its technological achievement with the first successfully 3D-printed and tested gas turbine blades.

Siemens kann mit seinem umfassenden Wissen in den wesentlichen Bereichen wie der Werkstoffkunde, der Automatisierung, dem Fertigungsprozess und der Verfahrenstechnik die Hochleistungskomponenten mittels Additive Manufacturing herstellen.
Siemens is able to produce the high performance components using Additive Manufacturing due to his broad knowledge in materials sciences, automation, manufacturing and process know how.

The components were tested at 13,000 rpm and temperatures beyond 1250°C, and featured completely revised and improved internal cooling geometry manufactured using AM technology. Siemens’ project team worked with blades manufactured at the company’s 3D printing facility in Finspong, Sweden, and at Materials Solutions, the recently acquired company in Worcester, UK.
For further information www.siemens.com

Aston Martin production returns to Newport Pagnell

Another landmark in Aston Martin’s ‘Second Century Plan’ was achieved last month with production officially returning to the company’s historic Newport Pagnell site. It marks a significant moment in which history has come full circle, with a special run of 25 DB4 GT Continuation cars being built at same site as the original DB4 GTs were made almost 60 years ago. Each car will take approximately 4500 man hours to build.

Since moving to its purpose-built headquarters and production facility at Gaydon in 2003, Aston Martin’s Newport Pagnell premises has been home to Aston Martin Works – heart of the marque’s heritage sales, service, spares and restoration operation. Production of the Mk1 Vanquish ceased in 2007, but since that time countless classic Aston Martins have been restored to their former glory by the Works team.
For further information www.astonmartinworks.com

ITC invests in latest grinding technology

Industrial Tooling Corporation (ITC) has invested well over £1m in the latest tool grinding equipment to extend its product ranges and enhance manufacturing capacity, productivity and quality standards. The investment includes two Rollomatic grinding centres, a centralised Vomat micro-filtration coolant system, a Haimer balancing machine and a wheel dressing machine from Action Super Abrasives (ASA).

The Rollomatic models include the new ShapeSmart NP5 blanking machine, ITC’s third Rollomatic cylindrical grinder. Suitable for preparing tool blanks, the NP5 has an integrated three-axis robot loader for the automated and lights-out blanking of rotary tool shanks from 0.025 to 25 mm. Alongside the ShapeSmart NP5 is the new Rollomatic GrindSmart Nano 6, the UK’s first Nano 6 installation. This six-axis grinding centre has been designed for producing micro-tools in the diameter range between 0.03 and 2.0 mm.
For further information www.itc-ltd.co.uk