Former investment banker Troy Barratt believes passionately in promoting manufacturing in the developed world – so much so that he gave up his career in Wall Street and then the City of London to buy a subcontract sheet metal fabricating business in Sittingbourne.
In 2012 he purchased 28-year-established sheet metalworking and fabrication company, Contracts Engineering Ltd (CEL) from the previous owners, who wanted to retire. By 2016, turnover had doubled to £2 million per annum.
Part of the £600,000 invested during that time has been used to purchase a BystronicBySprint fibre laser cutting machine capable of processing sheet up to 3 x 1.5 m using a 2 kW fibre laser source. Bought in January 2017, it replaced a 3 kW CO2 laser cutter of the same sheet size capacity dating back to 2002. The new machine joins two pre-existing 100-tonne Bystronic press brakes on the shop floor and a turret punch press acquired in 2013.
“When we took over CEL, the CO2 laser machine’s utilisation rate was under 50% over an 8-hour day shift plus nearly daily overtime,” says Barratt. “We quickly moved to a double shift, 16 hours a day, put a Bystronic service contract in place, and were able to raise the time the machine was cutting to 60%. This is among the highest in the industry for subcontract manufacturers.
“Since the BySprint started operating in early February, utilisation has increased further due the machine’s reliability and efficiency features,” he continues. “We ran it 24/5 for a while to remove a backlog of work and get in front of orders, which allowed us to minimise the cost of bought-in subcontract services during the transition period.”
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