Automated
ambitions
Leading aerospace subcontractor
Arrowsmith Engineering has invested in
a Doosan (Mills CNC Automation,
https://is.gd/edocag) collaborative robot
(cobot) cell as part of a wider £200,000
investment made by the company to help it
increase its productivity levels and maintain
its competitive edge.
The robotic cell installed at Arrowsmith’s
20,000 ft2 facility comprises a new Doosan
DNM 4500 vertical machining centre
supplied by Mills CNC equipped with a
fourth-axis unit and a M0617 cobot with a
1.7 m reach radius and 6 kg payload
capacity equipped with a Schunk (https://
is.gd/nuyevi) Co-act EGP-C electrically-driven
two- nger parallel gripper.
The cell is being used to ramp up
production of a precision engine part that
Arrowsmith manufactures for customers in
Spain and the US. Underpinning ‘lights-out’
production, the cell operates 24/7, enabling
the company to manufacture and supply 200
components every month to these
customers.
Integrating a collaborative robot into the
process has had a dramatic impact on
productivity and machine shop ef ciency,
and has negated the need for Arrowsmith to
invest in a second machine tool, as
Arrowsmith Engineering’s managing director,
Jason Aldridge, explains: “The cell has
signi cantly increased capacity levels – by
up to 50% – and is helping us capitalise on
the 20% growth we as a company have
experienced over the last 12 months –
growth that has seen our annual turnover
soar to £7.5m.
“Some manufacturers, especially here in
the UK, are reticent about investing in
automation and believe that it has a
negative impact on jobs. I don’t subscribe to
this view. If anything, automation makes us
more competitive and successful, enabling
us to recruit more people into skilled jobs.”
The cobot cell is Arrowsmith’s rst
investment in robotics and, operating round
the clock, it has made the machining
process for the engine parts less labour
intensive, as an operator is no longer
required to remain on standby to load and
unload parts into and out of the machine.
Continues Aldridge: “The cell has made
us 15% quicker and has given us a 50%
capacity boost already that, in anyone’s
book, is a fantastic return on investment.”
Based on this initial experience,
Arrowsmith has approached Mills CNC
Automation to investigate the potential for
automating more and different processes at
its facility. Discussions to date have
included the feasibility of investing in a
Doosan cobot to serve two machine tools to
create an autonomous and exible
automated manufacturing cell, and the
potential of a cobot to undertake part
inspection operations.
Says Peter McCullough, product manager,
Doosan Robotics: “The cobot cell at
Arrowsmith Engineering provides ample
evidence, if any was needed, of the
signi cant bene ts component
manufacturers can expect to achieve from
automated machine tool tending operations.
“The installation of the Doosan M0617
cobot is one of the rst in the UK and,
judging by its positive and immediate impact
on Arrowsmith’s productivity, it won’t be the
last.”
Concludes Aldridge: “We are keen
advocates of automation. Automation
shouldn’t be seen as something that only
the big boys do… SMEs can access it costeffectively
and we need to ‘grasp the nettle’
in order to bring the UK’s productivity up to,
and in line with, our international rivals.”
Part of the Hyde Group, Stoneswood
Precision Components is a strategic
machining company working on key high
pro le projects within the aerospace and
defence industries. Located in Dukin eld,
Cheshire, a Hermle C 400 5-axis vertical
machining centre automated with the
machine manufacturer’s HS Flex pallet
storage and retrieval system is supporting
unattended subcontract production overnight
One of the fi rst
Doosan cobot
installations in the
UK has been made
at Arrowsmith
Engineering. More are
likely to follow as the
company investigates
further applications
SUBCONTRACTING ROUND-THE-CLOCK INVESTMENTS
Machinery has news of two subcontractors that have adopted automated manufacture, one a cobotbased
machining centre set-up, another a 5-axis machining centre with automation system
www.machinery.co.uk @MachineryTweets December 2019 27
/edocag)
/www.machinery.co.uk