Lathes breathe life into ventilator challenge

With the ramp-up of the Ventilator Challenge UK project to battle the COVID-19 pandemic, Dugard has witnessed an unprecedented surge in enquiries and sales relating to its Hanwha range of sliding-head turning centres.

As manufacturers up and down the UK switch production output to machining small turned components for ventilators, the attributes of the Hanwha range are coming to the fore. The Hanwha XE is the latest generation series, and enjoying particular success during the COVID-19 pandemic is the Hanwha XE35.
This compact heavy-duty machine is the largest in the XE series, with the facility to turn bars up to 35 mm diameter. The rigid 2750 kg XE35 is designed to machine hard materials and undertake high-volume material removal, as demonstrated by the vibration-dampening heavy cast construction, and strong, rigid tool post.
From a technical perspective, the Hanwha XE35 has a 2.2/5 kW main spindle motor and a 1.5/2.2 kW sub-spindle motor, both achieving a maximum spindle speed of 6500 rpm. The high-torque spindle motors are matched by Hanwha software, FANUC-0i CNC and gear-type modular live tooling configuration.
The tooling offers 18 positions that provide simultaneous front and rear spindle machining through a platen of five fixed tools and four driven tools in the X1 axis, with another four driven tools on the Z2-axis plane and one on the Z1 axis, accompanied by an additional four tool stations for the boring, drilling and machining of other internal features. All live tooling positions offer a high spindle speed of 6000 rpm with a 1 kW spindle motor.
The travel range of the Hanwha XE35 is generous with 210 mm in the Z1 axis, 62 mm in X1, 340 mm in Y1, 205 mm in Z2, and 312 mm in X2.
For further information www.dugard.com

New safeguards for return to work

The Nuclear AMRC in Sheffield has begun the second phase of restarting vital R&D projects while maintaining the highest levels of health and safety protection for staff.

In the first phase, a skeleton team implemented new safeguards, including markings to help people maintain safe distancing from the car park to the shop floor, a one-way flow system around the building, protective shields in reception and hand-sanitising stations with temperature measurement throughout the facility. The centre has produced a five-phase plan for returning to work while keeping staff safety as the number one priority.
“The measures that the team have put in place are excellent,” says Nuclear AMRC CEO Andrew Storer. “Of course, we still have a long way to go. The biggest challenge, in my opinion, will be ensuring sufficient desk and recreational areas for staff in the office space as our numbers ramp back up. This is something we are looking at closely. It is vital we only have essential staff on site at this stage, with others working safely from home.”
For further information www.namrc.co.uk

Manufacturers urged to take skills pledge

In-Comm Training, which operates three academies at Aldridge, Bridgnorth and Shropshire, has launched a new campaign to ensure apprenticeships are protected as manufacturers seek ways of coping with the COVID-19 pandemic.

HK Technologies / In-Comm

The company is asking firms in the West Midlands to sign-up to its ‘Skills Pledge’, which will see them commit to supporting apprentices, raising the profile of vocational learning and ‘upskilling’ their workforces.
‘Powering the Engine’ will last for over a year and will ensure industry does not sacrifice the investment and time it has channelled into developing talent as manufacturers begin to restart production.
For further information www.in-comm.co.uk/skills-pledge

Norjon continues to expand, invest and automate

Founded in 1984 and having moved repeatedly to larger premises to cope with almost continuous growth in turnover, subcontractor Norjon Precision Engineering expanded yet again at the end of 2018 with the acquisition of an adjacent unit on the Quay West Business Centre in Gosport, which enlarged the factory to 17,500 sq ft. Alongside this increase in shop-floor space, the firm has invested substantial sums year-on-year, with £2m spent during 2018 and 2019, and £1.2m of capital plant for 2020, some of which has already been delivered.

A pivotal moment in the accelerating rate of Norjon’s development was the decision in 2016 by owner and managing director Kevin Fox to automate a large proportion of production. The latest machine acquisition is a Hermle C400 five-axis milling centre fitted with the manufacturer’s HS Flex automated storage and retrieval system for eight 500 x 400 mm pallets. This turnkey cell, with touchscreen control for smart order management and connectivity for remote monitoring, was supplied by UK, Ireland and Middle East agent, Kingsbury.
The new cell has joined two automated Hermle five-axis cells delivered in 2018, a C22U and a C12U, both equipped with Erowa storage systems for exchanging smaller pallets. A further Hermle C12U was delivered in February 2020 equipped with a Dutch-made Halter robotic system for automated component loading and unloading around the clock, initially of vehicle engine parts. In total, taking into account three Hermle machines bought in 2017 and 2018, and legacy models from 2007 and 2012, plus a mill-turn C42U previously used by the AMRC and a larger C52MT mill-turn with a 1 m table that arrived in March 2020, Norjon operates nine of these German-built five-axis machines.

Says Fox: “In 2016 we often made batches of six-off prismatic parts of fairly high complexity. Even though we are a long-time user of five-axis equipment, which helps to make components in one hit and mitigate some of the time and cost of manufacture, it was easy to lose money on those jobs with all the programming and setting that was needed. So we took the decision three years ago to go after contracts for much larger batches of components, more like 50- or 60-off, but still complex in nature requiring substantial machining time.
“Then, one of our established customers in the medical industry ordered larger volumes of parts that we were already making,” he continues. “It was the trigger for us to move towards automation with the purchase of the first Hermle five-axis cell.”
Fox adds that Norjon operates four automated prismatic machining centres, including one from another supplier, and now has a fifth with the arrival of the Hermle/Halter cell. They allow virtually continuous production with minimal operator supervision throughout the night and at weekends, as well as during the day. He says the factory “really sings” now when he goes on to the shop floor, whereas before some machines might not be running as they would be waiting for fixtures or programs. Fox describes the difference as “amazing”.
The automated cell comprising the C400 and HS Flex has been installed in the factory extension together with the existing C20 and a spark eroder. Featuring storage for eight pallets on four levels and extended tool capacity totalling 81 positions, the Hermle was purchased to fulfil a contract requiring the delivery of 10 assemblies per week for a customer in the automotive industry. The two parts, towards the larger end of components produced at the factory, require 10 hours’ and 5 hours’ machining respectively from solid aluminium, and were initially milled and drilled on an unautomated C400. Considerable extra capacity has been gained due to the HS Flex running unattended for long periods.

Norjon now concentrates on working for four large corporations in the medical, food, automotive and marine propulsion industries. In the case of the latter sector, the company has recently become a preferred supplier to BAe Systems Maritime, which was the reason for installing the first Hermle mill-turn centre, as it allows turning of parts up to 800 mm in diameter and prismatic machining within an 800 x 800 x 550 mm working envelope. The new C52MT extends mill-turn capacity to nominally 1 cubic metre.
Fox concludes: “We started buying five-axis Hermle machining centres back in 2007, as we could achieve an almost polished finish when manufacturing aluminium and brass thermoforming moulds for the production of plastic food packaging. For our latest round of investment, we have returned to the same manufacturer due to our good experience with their machines over the years, its strong offering in automation involving its own and third-party solutions, and the excellent back-up provided by the sales agent Kingsbury.”
For further information www.kingsburyuk.com

ProtoTRAK proves game-changer for Roant

When Darren Chisnall created Warrington-based Roant Precision Engineering back in 2001, it was as a small precision subcontractor relying on a selection of manual machines.

Now, 19 years on, the company has just completed the takeover of its biggest customer, Eiger Torrance, a manufacturer of mixing, milling and de-aeration systems for the production of paints and printing inks. This investment will secure machining work for Roant Precision Engineering, as well as providing further growth opportunities for both businesses.
“We’ve had a 15-year relationship with Eiger Torrance, working on fabrication and machining of their range of products, and have invested in machinery over the years to support that work, such as the recent arrival of an XYZ XL 1100 large capacity lathe,” says Chisnall. “Therefore, when the opportunity arose to buy the company, it made perfect sense as it protected the future of our business and opened up even greater potential.”
The arrival of the XL 1100 is the latest in a long line of XYZ machines at Roant Precision, the first of which, an XYZ SM3000 bed mill, was a prize won at MACH 2002.
“That first XYZ machine changed how we approached work and was the start of our success,” says Chisnall. “The ProtoTRAK control has served us well as we expanded our machining capacity with more XYZ ProtoTRAK mills and ProTURN lathes. We did need larger capacity though, hence the decision to go for the XL 1100, which was bought specifically for Eiger Torrance work. However, once word got around that we had the capability to swing 1100 mm components weighing up to 4000 kg, we soon found work coming in from other customers.”
For further information www.xyzmachinetools.com