Subcontractor expands in UK - and India
Subcontractor expands in the UK and India
Two Japanese-built, twin-pallet machining centres from Whitehouse Machine Tools, a horizontal-spindle, 4-axis OKK HP500S and a vertical-spindle, 5-axis Brother TC-32B, were installed in Autumn 2007 at the Burnley factory of contract machinist, BCW Engineering.
The prime purpose of the machines is the manufacture of aluminium compressor housings for automotive turbochargers, although other parts are also produced, such as engine and gearbox bracketry.
Commented BCW's managing director, Alec Cassie, 'We selected machine tools from Whitehouse to expand prismatic machining of turbocharger parts in our aluminium cell because of the good relationship built up over the past couple of years. During that time they have supplied us with three mill-turn centres from the Italian manufacturer, Biglia.'
The relationship with the machine tool supplier is about to develop further. In January 2008, BCW will open a technology centre at the Lancashire Digital Technology Centre, a few miles from the company's factory in Pheonix Way, Burnley. The new centre will contain a toolroom as well as inspection and R&D facilities, and will provide prove-out and limited batch production on a number of metalcutting machines, including models from OKK, Brother and Biglia.
Once a project progresses to larger volume production, it will be transferred to Phoenix Way or to a new BCW factory in India. Mr Cassie and co-founder, Paul Biggs, are in the final stages of setting up a joint venture on the subcontinent to carry out simpler machining economically, while the UK facility will concentrate on more complex, higher added value work.
The subcontractor has enjoyed considerable success since it was set up in early 2002 by Mr Cassie, formerly a main board member of the Hyde group.
The first major contract was to produce 1500 engine brackets per week for the Jaguar V6 engine. BCW's turnover is on target to exceed £5 million in 2008, based on the production of a wide variety of components for the automotive and power generation industries, and increasingly for the aerospace and medical sectors. That turnover figure is expected to double by 2009/10 when the Indian factory is fully established.
Machine tools supplied by Whitehouse Machine Tools have underpinned this growth. The first Biglia lathe, a B658YS twin-spindle, single-turret machine, was installed to mill-turn bodies and sleeves for valve rotators used in diesel engines that power large commercial vehicles and gensets. To provide additional capacity for similar work, two further Biglia lathes followed Ð a B470YSM Quattro with two turrets and more recently, a smaller capacity B301YS. The Quattro has sufficient tools for two different 30 mm diameter parts to be machined from steel fed from an Iemca short bar magazine. Changeover is therefore rapid from one batch to the next, weekly output being up to 7,000 parts.
On the other Biglia lathes, components are produced from billets up to 65 mm diameter in cycle times of between 2.5 and 5 minutes in batches of typically 600-off. All parts are machined in-cycle on the reverse end and need a lot of prismatic machining using the live tools. Sometimes this accounts for as much as one third of the cycle if there is an extensive slot milling requirement.
Said Mark Corms, in charge of the turning cell at BCW, 'We opted for Biglia lathes due to their robustness, stability and power.
'We wanted a good quality machine with powerful driven tooling that would keep producing parts within tolerance, 24/7, to Cpk 1.67. In some cases we are achieving Cpk 2.0.
'The engineers from Whitehouse interfaced well with our staff at the applications stage and through to installation and commissioning, and set no time limit for support.'
Trevor Cassie, in charge of the aluminium cell at Phoenix Way, went on to describe the role that the OKK and Brother machining centres play in expanding automotive component production. There are now five machining centres and four CNC lathes in the section. The new twin-pallet machines from Whitehouse are each devoted to producing a particular type of turbocharger casing and were purchased to cope with increasing demand.
The 500 mm pallets on the 4-axis OKK each have a tombstone with four components clamped hydraulically per side, two for Op 1 and two for Op 2. The fourth axis is used positionally to enable access to all areas of the component, avoiding an additional operation. Pallet time is nearly four minutes and output is 6,000 per week. The aluminium casing machined on the 5-axis Brother is more complicated, dictating an extra axis to enable two-hit machining. Both rotary axes are provided by a Nikken compound table and are also used positionally, rather than being interpolated with the machine's linear axes. Cycle time is 70 seconds and weekly output is 2500 casings.
To enable further expansion without increasing headcount, Mr Cassie plans to introduce automation in the two main production areas at Phoenix Way. The intention is to load billets robotically into the chucking lathes in the steel turning cell; and to install an automated storage and retrieval system for machining centre pallets in the aluminium cell.
Of the 67 staff currently working at the factory, the majority are highly skilled machine tool operators, setters and programmers. However, as in most manufacturing environments, there is a need for semi-skilled staff to carry out repetitive work that not everyone is keen to do. BCW has identified an ingenious solution to this problem that is socially inclusive. Provided that they are willing to work, people of any age are hired, trained and given a chance to hold down a permanent job, regardless of their background.
Deservedly, BCW won the Lancashire area award for Social Inclusion and Employment in 2005 and again in 2007, when it was also voted fastest expanding business in Burnley.
