PROFILE
“If you’re unable
to meet the
aerospace industry’s
exacting quality
requirements, stringent
lead-times and
cost-down demands,
you’re on a hiding to
nothing”.”
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addition, of course,
the company has
invested in advanced
Doosan fi ve-axis
machine tool
technologies.
The rationale behind the
purchase is a desire to ensure
Lenane has the best possible facilities and
the company’s recent multi-axis, multitasking
machine tool investments
demonstrate its commitment to one-hit
machining. For some companies the
performance improvements gained from
such investments may have been enough
- but not for Jim Lenane. “Continuous
user. In the last eight years Lenane has
purchased four new Doosan machining
centres, including two fi ve-axis machines,
and three new multi-tasking lathes from
Mills CNC.
Over a similar period, the company has
metamorphosed from a toolmaking
company to one of Ireland’s premier
precision subcontractors.
Lenane serves a number sectors,
including aerospace, medical devices, oil
and gas etc and it is the company’s growing
aerospace business (specifi cally the
machining of high-precision aero-structure
parts) and its desire to move up and
strengthen its position in the aerospace
supply chain that were the driving forces
behind the automated cell’s inception.
Lenane’s Managing Director Jim Lenane
explains: “The aerospace sector is global,
challenging and demanding and, whilst
success is never guaranteed, if you’re
unable to meet the Industry’s exacting
quality requirements, stringent lead-times
and cost-down demands you’re on a hiding
to nothing”.
A quick look at some of Lenane’s recent
business decisions and activities
demonstrate the company’s commitment
to growing its aerospace business. Not only
has the company achieved AS 9100
certifi cation and SC21 membership, it is
also an active participant of the Emerald
Aero Group (an Irish manufacturing
consortia established to support the
aerospace sector’s supply chain. In
improvement is a
journey not a
destination,” he
explains.
“My vision and
ambition has always been
to exploit the true potential
of automation - the objective
being to achieve continuous and
seamless production in our facility, and to
reduce (as far as is possible) the labour
component from our machining processes.
“In reality I was waiting for the right
time to realise the vision and, at the tail
end of 2018 with orders from our existing
aerospace customers reaching an all-time
high and with fi rm commitments from
them to place more orders with us in the
future - the decision to put these plans
into action was made.”
Certain imperatives underlay the
decision. From the outset, for instance, a
number of potential automation routes
were discounted by Lenane. These
included investing in machine tools with
integrated automatic pallet changers.
Explains Jim Lenane: “Integrated
workpiece pallet changers were clearly an
option for us but, from a continuous
production perspective, this route (i.e the
number of pallets available), had its
limitations. I wanted something more
ambitious: an automation solution that
was future-proof.
“I knew that an automation solution
that involved industrial robots was the
direction of travel - so we set about
exploring the options and alternatives.”
To help the company select the
optimum solution a number of
prerequisites were drawn up. The fi rst of
these was that Lenane’s manufacturing cell
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