Experts from Sharing in Growth (SiG) have selected Independent Forgings & Alloys (IFA), a rapidly growing Sheffield forging firm, to join its business transformation programme.

IFA, which operates from a 250,000 sq ft facility, now plans to increase its annual sales turnover from £23m in 2018, to almost £42m by 2024. Last year, the company received an £8.5m capital investment from BGF and will now work with SiG to focus on leadership, culture and operational capability.
IFA CEO Andy McGuinness says: “Our growth plans mean we must secure higher volume, long-term agreements in aerospace. This is an extremely price-sensitive market, so we require significant investment in capital equipment, and we need SiG’s specialist expertise to help raise our competitiveness. Otherwise, those long-term contracts will go to multi-national competitors with greater resources and financial backing.”
For further information www.sig-uk.org

Fuchs, a specialist in cutting fluids and coolants, has signalled its commitment to climate protection by making plans for complete CO2 neutrality as early as next year.

The company, which has its UK headquarters in Stoke, will be CO2 neutral globally by 1 January 2020, from energy consumption in production, to consumables in administration. In order to achieve this outcome in just two months’ time, Fuchs will offset any CO2 emissions which have not yet been avoided, with compensation measures. The company will therefore invest in high-quality climate protection projects aimed primarily at promoting renewable energies.
For further information www.fuchs.com

Formaplex has developed an ultra-light chassis for a solar powered electric car project managed by a team of undergraduate students from Cambridge University.

The car, which can travel from London to the Scottish Highlands at a speed of 50 mph on the same power it takes to boil a kettle, recently returned from an 1864 mile race across Australia. Formaplex, which counts major Formula One teams among its clients, tooled the carbon fibre chassis and body panels, significantly reducing the car’s weight. The team created a mould tool and helped the students to laminate layers of carbon fibre.
For further information www.formaplex.com

Mills CNC, through its recently-created Automation Division, has supplied precision engineering specialist Cambridge Precision Ltd (CPL) with a Doosan collaborative robot (cobot).

The Doosan M0617 cobot, equipped with ONRobot electrically-driven two-finger parallel grippers and Schunk vices, has been installed at the company’s facility in St Neots, where it has been integrated with a Doosan DNM 6700 vertical machining centre to create an automated manufacturing cell. Since commissioning, the cell has been programmed to handle more than 20 different projects, and the company estimates that, from a standing start two months ago, over 5000 prismatic parts have been manufactured.
For further information www.millscnc.co.uk

Seco’s recent ‘Inspiration through Innovation’ manufacturing best-practice event, which focused exclusively on the aerospace sector, attracted a total of 747 visitors over the two days.

Says Mike Fleming, Seco’s strategic marketing, products and services manager: “Over 22% of visitors were from outside the UK. We welcomed people from as far afield as China, South Korea, Australia, India and the US, as well as from mainland Europe. We deliberately targeted this year’s event at key decision makers in aerospace component manufacturing companies.
For further information www.secotools.com