Dowson Food Machinery was established in Yorkshire in 1982 under the skilled entrepreneurship of founder John Murgatroyd.

He set about designing new products for slicing and bagging bread, and before long was supplying bespoke equipment and service support to many of the UK’s leading bakery groups, as well as to smaller independent and artisan bakers.
Now run by managing director Nick Lacey, the company exports across five continents and has machines installed at customers such as Warburtons and Hovis.
The success of the business meant that expansion was inevitable and, in 2015, it moved to a new 48,000 sq ft facility in Bradford, nearly three times the size of the original factory. Now employing 60 people and with the space for more equipment, new lines were designed to include products for speciality breads, flatbreads, rolls and tortillas.
The company’s main asset today is its in-house CNC machining capability.
“We offer more than our competitors,” explains James Carson, sales and marketing manager. “To have our own Haas machines on-site is not only economical, it gives us a level of control over quality and lead-time which we would never have by outsourcing.
“We can alter or modify a component to change the way a piece of equipment works, then test it straight away in-house.”
In 2017, Dowson decided to replace one of its lathes and, after careful research, invested in a Haas ST-15 turning centre with a 15 kW, 4,000 rpm spindle and 210 mm chuck. “You get a lot of bang for your buck,” says purchasing manager Andrew Sands. “We paid less for the ST-15 than we did for a lathe we bought 10 years ago, and it more than matches it for accuracy and reliability.”
For further information www.haas.co.uk

Unicut Precision invested over £1.5m in seven machine installations during late 2017, of which six were by Citizen Machinery UK.

The Citizen-supplied machines comprised two Miyano BNE-51MSY fixed-head and four Cincom L12-VII sliding-head turn-mill centres, with one featuring Low Frequency Vibration (LFV) technology. This contribution to improve productivity targets has helped to make 2018 a clear sales record for the subcontractor, putting the firm well on target to hit sales of £5m this year.
Says managing director of the Welwyn Garden City based firm Jason Nicholson: “Our order book reflects our revised strategy to move from being a subcontract machinist – reacting to orders as they roll in – to one that continuously generates business from being a ‘supply partner’. In this role, we have a willingness to invest and align our production capability across the company to customer product and delivery needs.”
Unicut is shipping on average 1.2 million parts a month and processes 370 different product orders, of which a third is directly exported. In addition, as the company has moved forward, it has added the responsibility to provide some 30 different ‘direct-to-line’ assemblies and sub-assemblies to customers.
The decision to install two Miyano BNE-51MSY fixed-head machines followed the firm’s market review of twin-turret, two-spindle turn-mill centres. The discussions also included the replacement of sliding-head machines that were concluded with four Cincom L12-VII models arriving, of which one was specified with LFV cutting technology.
On the Citizen Cincom machines, the patented LFV technology is not based on changing macros at the CNC but on the initiation of selectable G-code sequences programmed at the machine control to impart the most appropriate size of chip to be produced.
For further information www.citizenmachinery.co.uk

Sheffield Forgemasters has installed the UK’s largest five-axis vertical turning lathe (VTL) – manufactured by Spanish company BOST – as part of a £6m upgrade to its machining facilities that will improve capacity and throughput for complex machining requirements.

Commissioning of the VTL was attended by delegates from Sheffield City Region Local Enterprise Partnership, which helped to fund the VTL installation, alongside senior supply chain partners and officials from BOST and its UK supplier, McDowell Machine Tools.
David Bond, CEO, says: “The improvement to our machining facilities is of particular interest to customers in the defence industry as the VTL has superior accuracy and will significantly reduce lead times on delivery for crucial components, both for the UK and US submarine programmes. Our new VTL will also have significant implications for the machining of domed or cylindrical components, such as those required in the civil nuclear power market and pressure vessel sector.”
Weighing almost 250 tonnes, the BOST VTL required the removal of 6000 tonnes of earth and 3400 tonnes of concrete to create a foundation. The machine has a maximum machining height of 4 m, maximum swing diameter of 8.5 m, table weight capacity of 100 tonnes and embraces the Industry 4.0 strategies of process control, adaptive control and real-time interactive maintenance protocols.
Stuart McDowell, managing director at McDowell Machine Tools, says: “BOST hydrosphere machines offer the key benefits of being extremely heavy, rigid and powerful, yet are still capable of the highest levels of accuracy. This technology is a significant investment for Forgemasters and gives the company capability unrivalled in the UK and matched by only a handful of companies throughout the world.”
For further information www.sheffieldforgemasters.com

A Christchurch-based subcontract machinist has invested in the latest CNC technology to help it meet a 20% growth in orders.

Peter Day Precision Engineers, which is part of the Venture Precision Engineering Group (VPEG), has installed a Nakamura WY150 from the Engineering Technology Group (ETG).
The twin-spindle, twin-turret configuration gives the company the ability to remove a lot of secondary operations, making the overall turning process quicker for customers.
“Our work is very much around manufacturing complex machined components that have to perform in demanding environments, whether that is for aerospace, oil and gas, or the medical sector,” explains general manager Pete Makosa. “Over the past 12 months we have witnessed a 20% increase in orders, which will see the wider VPEG group break through £10m turnover this year. This, combined with a strong pipeline of future orders, means we needed additional CNC turning capabilities, so we asked long-term supplier ETG to come up with a solution.
“Our first Nakamura, a super NTJ, was installed in 2010, so we know how reliable they are and the fact they offer fast metal removal rates while still holding tight limits,” he adds. “The WY150 is a very impressive machine and has the added benefits of being twin spindle and twin turret; that was a very big plus for us.”
Peter Day, which supplies components for blue-chip customers including Curtiss Wright, Planer, Armfield and Eaton, installed the new Nakamura in June and it is already having the desired impact of releasing capacity and meeting increased volumes generated by a clutch of contract wins.
For further information www.engtechgroup.com