AS9100 brings £1m opportunities

One of Shropshire’s fastest-growing manufacturers is targeting more opportunities in the aerospace sector after it secured a prestigious quality accreditation.Advanced Chemical Etching (ACE), which employs 70 people at its factory in Telford, now holds AS9100 for the first time after successfully completing its audit less than five months after the initial gap audit.

With the quality certification now in place, ACE is planning to increase its work in this sector by an additional £1m of turnover. The company develops and produces all parts at its main site in Telford and at dedicated sister business, ACE Forming, in Kingswinford.Sales for this year expect to touch £9m and, with a growing pipeline of interest, the firm is keen to recruit more staff.

More information www.ace-uk.net

Sunnen celebrates 100 years

Founder Joe Sunnen’s quest to sell his honing inventions started 100 years ago with cross-country sales calls made from the back of his 1916 Hupmobile. Today, Sunnen technology finds use worldwide for making performance engine parts, energy exploration equipment, aerospace components, gears, fuel injectors, fluid-power components and more. 

St Louis-based Sunnen Products Company says it has become the world’s largest vertically integrated manufacturer of precision honing systems with facilities in 14 countries. “As we celebrate our 100thanniversary, Joe would be proud to see that his spirit of innovation lives on in our drive to develop new products and techniques,” says Tom Dustman, Sunnen’sdirector of sales in North America.

More information www.sunnen.com

Hurco Europe to hold Demo Deals Day

Following the inaugural event last year, machine tool company Hurco Europe will host its Demo Deals Day 2024 on 25 September at its facility in High Wycombe. Every machine on show will be available at a discounted ex-demo price. The event will be open from 08:30 to16:30. Premium offers on the day will include a VC500i five-axis machining centre with 40-station tool magazine, linear scales and 500 mm diameter rotary table.Flexible finance is available, including pause payments at the start, and Hurco reminds manufacturers that the 100% capital allowance is still in place for new machine purchases.

To attend email sales@hurco.co.uk

WEC Group acquires Laser Profiles Ltd

WEC Group, the UK’s largest fabrication and contract manufacturing company, is acquiring Laser Profiles Ltd, a laser cutting specialist based near Bournemouth. Laser Profiles boasts an array of cutting-edge technology that includes an automated Trumpf fibre laser cutter for flat sheet and an Adige fibre laser cutter for tube. The company’s capabilities also extend to precision sheet metal fabrication and welding.

By joining forces with WEC Group, which already has 25 laser cutting machines, 23 press brakes, three waterjet cutters, high-definition plasma cutting machines, over 40 CNC machine tools, 13 robotic welding cells, and in-house powder coating and wet painting capabilities, Laser Profiles will gain access to enhanced technological resources and a much broader market reach.
More information www.wec-group.com

Drury increases automated component production

Established in 2003 as a subcontractor, Drury Precision Engineering started two years later to manufacture its own range of mainly aluminium motorcycle accessories for road and racing bikes, and now no longer takes on external machining work. The company sells its aftermarket bike components globally under the Evotech Performance brand. The past eight years have seen exceptional year-on-year growth in turnover that necessitated careful planning of production capacity on the shop floor to keep pace with demand.

A user since 2015 of 16,000 rpm, high-efficiency machining centres from Brother, supplied through sole UK and Ireland agent Whitehouse Machine Tools (WMT CNC), Drury has over the years used various manually operated, twin automatic pallet change (2APC) models of the three-axis, 30-taper, machines, of which only two remain. That is because, to raise throughput, the company decided in 2015 to transition to automated Brother production cells with the purchase of two five-axis Speedio M140X2s.

One featured a Brother 4 m Feedio vision-based, robotic component handling system, while the other was connected to a System 3R WorkPartner Plus storage and handling system accommodating 180 pallets.

Now the company has gone a step further along the automation route with the installation of a larger capacity Brother Speedio U500Xd1 five-axis machining centre offering pneumatically-operated zero-point pallet location, again served by a WorkPartner Plus storage and handling system, but this time for 60 heavy-duty pallets.

It proved so successful that a second, almost identical cell has been ordered for delivery in October 2024, complete with its own WorkPartner Plus, as sharing one storage system between the two machines would reduce unmanned running hours to below the required 14 hours per machine.

More information www.wmtcnc.com