CNC Machinery Online Information

Tool-making company wanted to make the most of its tool-making expertise by adding on new CNC machine tools to expand engineering, design and manufacturing services.

New owner of tool-making company, Quick Tools, Mike Ireland had plans to develop the company into a low-volume, high technology design, development and machining operation He was keen to make full use of its high skill levels in toolmaking to marry the capability with contacts from his previous job in the aerospace industry

Ireland managed to triple Quick Tools’ turnover within five months but as Ireland said: “This is the result of a totally focused attitude, the workforce’s help and willingness to move forward plus the return from up-front investment”.

* CNC machine tools - Ireland purchased a Dugard Eagle BNC 1860 CNC Multifunction flat bed lathe and an ex-demonstration Dugard Eagle 1000 vertical machining centre (VMC) from C Dugard of Hove, a 3D portable measuring arm from Faro and new CAD/CAM software from MasterCAM and Delcam.

His concern was to retain customers that had drifted away prior to, and during, the sale of the Quick Tools company.

High on Ireland’s list of priorities in January, 2008, was to convince the 12 key staff that their skills support would give the company a future.

Here, the investment and the commitment to train them to further improve their knowledge was well received along with the withdrawal of redundancy notices.

Quick Tools was originally set up in 1962 by Paddy Langdon and taken over by his son Trevor and wife Jill, who decided last year they wanted to retire and sell the business.

A management buyout then failed and the Langdons made the decision to close and conformed to the law by issuing the appropriate redundancy notices.

The company had been living off an impressive direct and indirect customer base of leading names in commercial and military aerospace and defence, formula 1 and industrial and commercial engineering companies.

* Tool-making services - Quick Tools had supplied complete design and manufacture of jigs and fixtures, test rigs, mould and press tools, as well as developing and building special-purpose machinery.

It had also carried out fabrication, some sheet-metal work and produced composite tooling, some small batch turning and milling, plus CAD design services involving prestigious projects such as Euro Fighter Typhoon, Boeing 787, Airbus A340 and EH101 Merlin.

Ireland has a background in military engineering and told manufacturingtalk that a close friend had told him of the pending closure of Quick Tools and that he had just six weeks to prepare a rescue package.

Ireland said: “Customers have returned with orders and we are getting progressively involved with long-term projects that are quite large for a small company and should provide us with regular work for up to a year.

We have about 100 live customers on the books now with the top 20 providing the lion’s share of turnover - so we can’t complain”.

Irel;and had has set up training courses with PETA, Portsmouth’s Training and Consultancy Services at the Skills Centre in the town, for his employees, and ‘Train to Gain’ courses, with the Learning and Skills Council.

A graduate apprentice has been taken on and the company is currently seeking three new people (June 2008).

Ireland’s plan is also to locate a new 10,000ft2 unit as the current 3,300ft2 site at Farlington near Portsmouth is full to capacity.

Ireland is also very active networking with other toolmakers on certain long-term aerospace contracts and, even at this early stage in the company development, is spreading his business potential overseas.

Planning for the future also means grant negotiations are underway for further machine tool purchases so as not to restrict development of the business.

He said: “We felt we had no option but to commit to buy as quickly as possible and here Dugard was a great help”.

The development of the business embracing the inherent skills is also a focus of Ireland.

He said: “We turn, mill, grind, jigbore, weld and carry out some sheet-metal work, as well as a growing need for assembly and test.

Electromechanical assembly is another growth area for us and we have some excellent opportunities to re-engineer quite complicated fixtures for customers”.

Materials processed include aluminium, brass, copper and most steels, including stainless, Duplex, Nimonics, armour plate and titanium, as well as some composites and nylon which is why the Dugard Eagle machines were chosen”.

Ireland continued: “C Dugard was recommended by another company nearby which also saw the advantage of local support from Hove.

But more importantly, Dugard ticked all the boxes with the team so we went for the flexibility of manual/electronic handwheels and the CNC capability of the Dugard Eagle Multifunction BNC 1860 flat bed lathe with Fagor 8055i control”.

The company chose a Dugard Eagle 1000 VMC with Heidenhain CNC.

The Eagle 1000 was an ex-demonstration machine from the Hove showroom which, said Ireland, was a very helpful factor with company budgeting.

The BNC 1860 gave the added capacity of 1680mm travel in the Z-axis with 475mm swing and 710mm in the gap bed for fixture work in machining shaft-type components.

The machine also has an 11kW spindle, which is ample for the type of work turned at Quick Tools.

A quick-change toolpost and a rear mounted eight-station turret provide automated cycles on repeat components and batchwork.

Meanwhile the Dugard Eagle 1000 VMC has rejuvenated the small batch subcontract machining capability and is proving highly beneficial to tooling production.

* CAM link-up - the VMC is directly linked to MasterCAM and Delcam’s CAD software via the Heidenhain control.

With a table size of 1200mm by 510mm it provides a useful platform for the type of toolmaking operations carried out by Quick Tools and is also ideal for small batch production.

Axis travels are 1020mm by 530mm by 510mm and the 24 tool magazine with twin-arm changer provides sufficient tool capacity.

Quite important for Quick Tools is the compact design of the machine that requires a floor space of just 2.8m by 2.08m making it ideal for the size of the current workshop.

But one of the reasons for seeking new, larger premises is to create enough room to enable expansion.
http://www.manufacturingtalk.com/news/cdu/cdu196.html