THIS WEEK’S HIGHLIGHTS

Expansion at Midland Alloy

A specialist Telford manufacturing company has expanded and created six new jobs after receiving nearly £100,000 from a grant programme supported by the Marches Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP).

Midland Alloy has taken on new staff and built a warehouse extension at its Stafford Park base after receiving £97,285 from the Marches Building Investment Grant (MBIG). The company, which specialises in the manufacture of complex curved metal products and components, says the expansion is part of a £500,000 investment in its future.

According to director Paul Beirne, the new 4000 sq ft extension had created a 6 m high, dedicated pallet racking storage facility for long lengths of aluminium, other materials and tools, and extra space for manufacturing. “This investment will also increase manufacturing space within the existing main factory, with the potential to reduce operating costs and increase the capacity for sales growth and more jobs,” he states.

For further information www.marcheslep.org.uk

Embracing change at BSA Regal

There is a transformation taking place at Southampton-based precision subcontract specialist BSA Regal Engineering Ltd.

This root and branch shift is a radical repositioning of the company focused on improvement and growth, and concerned with strengthening and elevating BSA Regal Engineering’s position within its existing supply chains, and on winning new high-value business in different industries.

Part of this transformation embraces recent investment in two new MACH 1062-HD vertical machining centres from MACH Machine Tools, part of the Vigilance Group. The machines, both MACH 1062-HD models (1020 x 625 x 610 mm in the X, Y and Z axis respectively) are now installed at the company’s 12,000 sq ft facility, where they are being put through their paces machining a range of high-precision components from a diverse range of materials that includes aluminium, stainless steel, tool steel, plastic, titanium and nickel alloy.

MACH 1062-HD machining centres are high-performance machines and have replaced three of the company’s older machines, which were used in part exchange to help fund the new investment.

Explains Martin Clayton, workshop supervisor at BSA Regal Engineering: “To achieve our growth objectives and make us more productive and competitive, we need access to high-performance CNC machine tools that deliver the accuracy, speed and process reliability we expect – and that our customers demand. When MACH made us aware of the performance and competitive price of the 1062-HD machines, we sat up and took notice.
“We’re delighted with the performance of our MACH 1062-HD machines,” he adds. “They are making us more productive, efficient and competitive. Features like their 24-position ATCs, their good ergonomic design and easy workpiece accessibility have already made them firm favourites with machine shop staff.”
For further information www.machmt.co.uk

Record production month at Corbetts

One of the UK’s oldest hot-dip galvanisers has recorded its highest-ever volume from a single facility in July, with over £1m of new customer orders secured since returning from lockdown.

Corbetts the Galvanizers, which celebrates 160 years of trading in 2020, has seen a 48% rise in volume from the fencing sector, with ‘wins’ also achieved in utilities, infrastructure and transport. The company is processing all of this demand in just one plant after taking the decision to temporarily close its other facility until early 2021.

In June, the Telford-based company announced 17% more output than its average performance and this rose a further 7% in July, driven mainly by investment in operational efficiencies and a bespoke loading system. “We are bouncing back from what has been a very difficult period of volatile sales due to the impact of COVID-19,” explains Sophie Williams, finance director and general manager. “Now, however, we have average output at an all-time high and some excellent new customer wins that will generate about £1m of additional revenue.”

For further information www.wcorbett.co.uk

CNC Robotics celebrates 10 years

CNC Robotics, a supplier of robots for machining applications, recently celebrated its 10th anniversary by opening a second site in Liverpool and recruiting five extra staff.

The addition of the second site will enable a clearer separation of the company’s business in the supply of standard cells for single functions, typically trimming or drilling, and its R&D projects for more challenging applications.
Along with the five new recruits, the management team has been strengthened with the recent promotion of Philippa Glover to managing director and the addition of former Autodesk and Delcam director Bart Simpson as the company’s non-executive chairman. The expansion follows an increase in turnover of more than 30% during 2019, with CNC Robotics on course for even higher growth this year.
For further information www.cncrobotics.co.uk

Renishaw joins AM post-processing project

Renishaw is collaborating with UK start-up business Additive Automations as part of a project to automate the post-processing of metal parts made by additive manufacturing (AM).

Using collaborative robots (cobots) for support structure removal could reduce the average cost per part by 25%, furthering AM’s potential as a cost-effective option for large-volume production lines. Called ‘Separation of Additive-Layer Supports by Automation’ (SALSA), the project aims to use robotics and deep learning to digitalise some of the few remaining manual processes left in AM.
Additive Automations is a Sheffield-based start-up that creates robotic systems for use in AM processes. Renishaw has already provided four examples of AM builds for medical, oil and gas, automotive, and mechanical engineering applications. Testing its robotic system on parts already being used in industrial applications will help Additive Automations demonstrate the potential of its support structure removal system.
For further information www.renishaw.com