SUBCONTRACTING NEWS

Investing £350,000 in technology of the future

Precision sheet metal manufacturer KMF Group has expanded its manufacturing capabilities by investing £350,000 in a Salvagnini panel folding machine to boost productivity and accommodate its growing customer base.

Moving forward, the automated Salvagnini P1 panel bender will streamline business operations at this progressive manufacturing business. According to KMF, the machine will give the company’s metal folding process improved programming efficiency to support the prototyping of large batch production and add rapid capacity for volume manufacturing. The newly installed P1 product will also act as an energy saver, with KMF expecting to see energy consumption decrease in comparison with previous machinery.

KMF commercial director Keith Nicholl says: “Engineering is one of the fastest developing industries in the world. It’s important that we move with the times by investing and creating new ways of working to stay ahead of the competition. Our customers will quickly see a benefit from this investment, with the equipment improving efficiencies and processes.”

The company has also invested £75,000 in a bead-blast system, effectively doubling KMF’s finishing process capacity. The design of the blast system offers improved infrastructure, enabling the company to increase the variety of products it manufactures.

There will be a multitude of business benefits from the bead-blast system investment. For instance, KMF will be able to increase extraction capacity, clean down faster and add semi-automation to recycling capabilities, as well as improve the working environment for process operators.

For further information www.kmf.co.uk

Toolmaker dives into cost savings with Guhring

As a family-run business, Canterbury Tools has been involved in the design and manufacture of press tools since it was established almost 50 years ago. To optimise the production of specialist press tools, the Walsall-based subcontract manufacturer utilises cutting tools supplied by Guhring. 

The company specialises in the production of single operation tools, progression tools, transfer tools, as well as components and assemblies for automated and robotic processes in sectors as diverse as agriculture and construction, through to medical, IT, aerospace and automotive.

Canterbury Tools is always looking for opportunities to accelerate performance and productivity. Josh Bennett, operations team leader, says: “When you are cutting materials like D2 tool steel and running intricate forms with a high material removal rate, you can burn through tools quite quickly.”

Based on an ethos of continuous improvement and progressive strategies, the company took notable steps forward after it was introduced to cutting tool manufacturerGuhring at the MACH 2022 exhibition.

“Our first Guhring tool was the Diver series of end mills,” says Bennett.“We trialled the tools and to our surprise they delivered three times the performance of the apparently high-end tooling we were using at the time. From this point onwards, we took Guhring seriously. We found we could increase our cutting depths and stepovers by 1 to 1.5 times and increase our speeds and feeds while achieving a much higher tool life.”

He adds: “With a much higher material removal rate, jobs are on machines for less time, which is massive in the world of CNC machining.Additionally,not having to change the cutters as often reduces the downtime incurred by tool changeovers.”

For further information www.guhring.co.uk

From seven operations down to two

It is only within the past five years that Nuneaton-based subcontractor Oaston Engineering, which specialises in work for the aerospace and biotechnology industries, has embraced sliding-head turning. July 2018 saw the arrival of the firm’s first sliding-head lathe, a 20 mm bar capacity Cincom L20-VIIILFV from Citizen Machinery UK. It was followed in October 2022 by a second, larger model, a 32 mm capacity Cincom L32-VIIILFV.

Oaston Engineering’s managing director Sean McCarthy says: “We were always led to believe that sliding-head lathe operation was a dark art and that you need to produce large batch quantities, say 50,000, to justify setting them for a new run. We had been looking at the technology since MACH 2008 and, a decade later, when the Cincom L20 was delivered, we discovered the myths were untrue.”

Oaston Engineering had a particular job in mind for the Cincom L32: the production of a light aircraft pump camshaft from martensitic stainless steel.

The component, which is produced from 1.25-inch bar, formerly needed seven separate operations: outside diameter turning and grooving; milling on a machining centre; two separate turning operations in offset fixtures to machine the cams to a dimensional tolerance of 0.07 mm; drilling a longitudinal bore on a machining centre; cross drilling a tooling hole in another operation; and off-site grinding of two spigots to within 0.015 mm.

The camshaft produced in this way required a total of 18 minutes 30 seconds of cutting time, plus inter-machine handling, as well as 30 to 60 seconds for deburring and more time for inspection at each stage. Now, six of the operations are performed in one hit in less than 15 minutes on the Cincom before the part goes out for grinding.

For further information www.citizenmachinery.co.uk

Huge time savings achieved with Sylvac solution

Excel Precision, a prominent player in the UK’s EDM sector, recently worked with Bowers Group to address a complex machining challenge faced by a machine tool company. The solution cut the client’s component setting time from around a week to less than an hour, also resulting in a 12-week reduction in production time.

Steve Batt, technical director at Excel Precision, says: “Our innovative solution transformed a complex and time-consuming process into a highly efficient one. By incorporating innovative technology from Bowers Group and smart engineering from our team here at Excel, we not only met the client’s precision requirements but also significantly increased their annual production capacity by reducing production time.”

The client had a precision issue with a deep-seated bore. The initial approach involved using a conventional DTI but proved inefficient, taking 5-8 days to achieve the required runout. This lengthy timespan was primarily because of the inability to observe the part’s movement during adjustments in the confined bore, which extended to a depth of 350 mm.

Available from Bowers Group, the Sylvac D62S digital display and PS12D digital probe were the solutions identified. The D62S sits on a carbon-fibre tube with a wire passing through, connecting it to the two digital probes. A specially developed mechanism allows one probe to take measurements in the X direction and the other in the Y direction, ensuring precision despite the tight confines of the bore.

Immediate feedback shows a dramatic reduction in set-up time, enabling the client to set the component within an hour, a significant improvement from the initial 5-8 days. Additionally, when combined with a custom fixture, it improved the client’s production capacity by reducing production time by at least 12 weeks.

For further information www.bowersgroup.co.uk

Subcontract market ends year on a high

The latest Contract Manufacturing Index (CMI) shows that the UK market for subcontract manufacturing ended 2023 on a strong note, with the market up 106% compared to the previous three months. Overall, the market concluded 7.5% higher than at the end of 2022. Fabrication was the strongest area, up 160% on the previous quarter and 12% on the previous year. Growth in machining was less strong but still significant, up 51% on the previous quarter and 2.4% on 2022.

Sourcing specialist Qimtek produces the CMI, a reflection of the total purchasing budget for outsourced manufacturing of companies looking to place business in any given month. The CMI represents a sample of over 4000 companies that could be placing business, which together have a purchasing budget of more than £3.4bn, and a supplier base of over 7000 companies with a verified turnover in excess of £25bn.

For further information www.qimtek.co.uk