EDITORIAL ROUNDUP

Teenage girl wins Young Engineer of the Year

Ranita Ariyibi, a 15-year old student at Colchester County High School for Girls, has scooped been crowned UK Young Engineer of the Year 2023 for her invention of a device that enables hearing and deaf people to communicate more easily.InterSign acts as electronic interpreter between British Sign Language (BSL) and English, meaning it can see a sign then give the meaning in English – both spoken and written on screen. Similar to smart speakers, it has the additional advantage of being able to take action. So, signing ‘help’ could trigger the device to call emergency services or a family member.
For further information www.bit.ly/3pyHHYC

XYZ UMC-5X takes to the skies

The Rolls-Royce Precision Machining Facility in Derby is using a new UMC-5X five-axis machining centre from XYZ Machine Tools to bring in-house the manufacture of fixtures for intermediate-pressure turbine blades.Tool-room managerThomas McAllister says: “We chose the UMC-5X for its price-performance metrics and use it extensively for 3+2 machining. It providesus with accuracies of 10 µm.”

He continues: “The machining process requires compound angles and we typically braze supporting pads on each fixture, machining these to suit the individual blade. For the UMC-5X we specified: a Blum tool setter and RMP 600 Renishaw probe; the kinematics option on the control; and the linear roller system for the best area of contact and fastest axis travel. We manufacture about 40 complex fixtures each year. The UMC-5X will pay for itself in less than 12 months.”
For further information www.xyzmachinetools.com

Ownership scheme extended

All staff at a manufacturer of round, flat and profile wire are now shareholders thanks to a recently completed MBO.Directors Tom Mander, Andrew Du Plessis and Adam Shaw bought Alloy Wire International (AWI), which has two sites in the West Midlands and Yorkshire, with the new management team immediately extending the firm’s employee ownership scheme to include all 33 employees.The ‘people first’ approach is certainly paying dividends with AWI going from £1m in 2000 to £12.8m at the start of 2022, and impressive sales putting it on course for nearly £18m by the close of the year.
For further informationwww.alloywire.com

Machine tool sector gains attention in Vietnam

The VDW (German Machine Tool Builders’ Association) staged its third symposium in Vietnam’s capital Ho Chi Minh City last month. In total, 10 German manufacturers of machine tools and related technologies presented their capabilities, including Alzmetall, Chiron, Gleason, Grob, Index, Open Mind, Röders, Siemens and Trumpf. Some 121 participants from important customer industries such as metal production, electronics, textile and foodaccepted the invitation of the VDW and the German-Vietnamese Chamber of Foreign Trade, the best response since the first event in 2016.
For further information www.vdw.de/en

MecWash expands US presence

MecWash Systems is entering a new distribution partnership with AquasGroup in the United States. Based in East Providence, Rhode Island,AquasGroup will serve as the exclusive distributor of MecWash parts washers in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, as well as New York and Pennsylvania. Additionally, AquasGroup will provide complete technical support for MecWash Systems customers in these eight states.MecWash parts washers support the full range of engineering processes, including machined castings, forgings, turned parts, stampings, extrusions and mouldings.
For further information www.mecwash.com