TURNING NEWS IN THE ROUND
Joanne Thompson (R) and Mark
O’Brien of A Fawcett Precision
Engineers are pleased with their
investment in turning technology
from XYZ Machine Tools
Machinists
give it a whirl
A fl urry of investments and developments in the turning technology
segment have prompted Steed Webzell to seek out the inside track
Achieving a balanced machining
portfolio that matches present and
predicted work ows is the current
investment policy of A Fawcett Precision
Engineers. This ethos at the Elland, West
Yorkshire-based company gained fresh
impetus when Joanne Thompson took over
the running of the business, following her
father’s retirement in 2009.
“When I took over the business, we had a
wide range of lathes, but all of them were
manual and many were getting old and
creating bottlenecks in production,” she says.
“To address this, in 2012 we bought a
second-hand CNC lathe, along with a new SLX
555 ProTURN lathe from XYZ Machine Tools
(https://is.gd/kufaha). And, while the XYZ SLX
555 is still with us and working well, the old
CNC lathe had seen better days and needed
replacing.”
This thought process saw the arrival in
March 2019 of a new XYZ TC400 turning
centre with Siemens 828D ShopTurn control.
The machine has a maximum swing of
600 mm and is the largest turning centre in
the XYZ range.
In the summer, following Thompson’s
participation and graduation from the
Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses
programme, the incentive and con dence was
there for more investment, resulting in a
further order being placed with XYZ Machine
Tools. The company ordered the latest
ProTURN lathe, an RLX425 with RX
ProtoTRAK control, which was delivered in
July. XYZ’s RLX 425 is available with either a
1.25 or 2 m between-centre distance (1.25 m
installed), while maximum swing over bed is
480 mm, with up to 700 mm in the gap.
“You have to be realistic and con dent
about what you can do for customers and not
promise something you can’t deliver, which is
why we’ve continued to focus on low-tomedium
batch quantities in sectors where we
have extensive experience,” says Thompson.
“The XYZ machines meet our needs perfectly
for this type of work. Having the machines
has made us more cost-effective, reduced our
labour costs and helped us become more
competitive.”
When the XYZ TC400 was installed, the
decision was taken to have the free training
on-site at Elland, which allowed the
conversational programming on the Siemens
control to be used on actual production jobs.
Furthermore, works manager Mark O’Brien
could pick up its operation within hours.
With regard to both the ProtoTRAK and
Siemens controls, he says: “We were sold on
the rst ProtoTRAK lathe by its competitive
price and the control itself, as coming from
manual machines it was a signi cant step-up,
but one that was straightforward. It was the
same when we brought in the XYZ TC 400,
which was another natural progression, but
one that happened without any issues. With
the new RLX ProTURN lathe, we see it as the
next logical step in the development of our
turning capacity. The use of the touchscreen
and the graphics capability of the RX control
will be a major plus as we do all of our
40 November 2019 www.machinery.co.uk @MachineryTweets
/kufaha)
/www.machinery.co.uk