SUBCONTRACTING BEHIND THE MAIN EVENT
four-sided tombstone and indexing trunnion.
This comprises a Multi-Lok unit having
four faces, each carrying a twin-position
Qwik-Lok clamp that secures two parts at
once against a central jaw. The whole
arrangement is mounted horizontally on a
fourth CNC axis comprising, in this case,
a Haas HRT210 rotary table and a Chick
tailstock. The bene ts have been
remarkable.
Most importantly, operators at the
Gloucester factory are able to xture eight
plastic billets at a time, close the machine
doors, walk away for an hour to do other
jobs, and then return to unload eight parts
machined on three faces, ready for a second
operation to mill away material from the
back face. Previously, the three cycles were
carried out sequentially in individual vices
mounted on the machine table. It meant that
operators had to be in almost permanent
attendance to open the doors, reset the
components and close the doors to be able
to extract one nished part every 15
minutes.
Production output has been doubled,
despite the cutters being in contact with the
material for a similar length of time. The
saving comes purely through less handling
of the components, coupled with the
opportunity to program fewer tool changes.
One cutter can move around at least two
parts rather than one, and potentially eight,
if the cycle time can be lowered by rotating
the trunnion rather than exchanging the tool
when machining any given feature.
The other major advantage of the new
workholding solution is a reduction in scrap
from around one part in 20 to virtually zero,
as the risk of tolerance build-up through
repeated re xturing is eliminated.
Says Jonathan Caple, managing director
and joint owner of Stratos Engineering with
business partner and operations director
Mark Vine: “We are delighted with the
ef ciency of the new Chick workholding
system and so is our customer.
“They visited to see the new production
process and have been so impressed that
the occasional bottlenecks and supply
interruptions have been eliminated that it
prompted them to award us additional
work.”
At Takumi Precision Engineering, Open
Mind’s (https://is.gd/gatuno) hyperMILL
Takumi is
benefi ting from
barrel-style tools
and hyperMILL
CADCAM software helps the Limerick-based
company to provide an ef cient service to
medical device, pharmaceutical, aerospace
and precision engineering rms in Ireland,
something it has done for 20+ years.
Running machines that include Tornos
(https://is.gd/pafeku), Doosan (Mills CNC,
https://is.gd/edocag) and Miyano (Citizen
Machinery UK, https://is.gd/silefi ) turning
machines, together with 3- and 5-axis
machining centres from Doosan, Spinner
(Whitehouse Machine Tools, https://is.gd/
iyiqug) and, most recently, Matsuura
(https://is.gd/voxovu), one of the company’s
core investments has been hyperMILL CAM.
This was prompted by the availability of
barrel tool technology and the arrival of
5-axis machines, both of which challenged
the previous CAM system.
Says managing director Gerry Reynolds:
“Only ve years ago, 90% of our work was in
the medical industry with the remaining work
being across a number of sectors, including
the aerospace market. We had an
opportunity to enter the aerospace market in
a more positive way, increasing volumes
from one- to three-offs to continuous
batches of 10-15-off on the Airbus A220,
previously known as the Bombardier
C-Series. We had to invest in 5-axis
technology to accomodate the ramping-up of
complex aerospace work and we have
bought 13 5-axis machines in the last ve
years to support this”
He continues: “Ten years ago, I didn’t
understand CAM and would have argued
against it. However, there was a necessity
for CAM to run our machines and at the time
I called it ‘ nger CAM‘, as we were
programming at the machine. We progressed
to a more comprehensive CAM system and
eventually installed eight seats of software.
However, a visit to the AMRC introduced us
to Ceratizit’s (https://is.gd/tovaso) barrel
tools and Open Mind’s hyperMILL CAM
system – this changed the game for
Takumi.”
After investing heavily in CAM software,
Reynolds was apprehensive at the prospect
of changing CAM systems, even though the
existing system was not perfect. “It was the
barrel tool machining features within the
hyperMILL MAXX High Performance Strategy
that appealed to me, but I wanted my team
to take the lead, as they would be the ones
using the software,” he recalls.
Having bought its rst seat of hyperMILL
18 months ago, it now has six. “The
hyperMILL MAXX Machining High
Performance Package and the respective
barrel tools with their innovative geometry
allow us to step-down 5 to 10 mm, as
opposed to 0.4 to 0.8 mm, when nishing
pockets, walls or pro ling features. This has
instantly reduced nishing cycles by at least
70%, giving us a minimum overall cycle time
improvement of 30% on every component,”
the managing director explains, adding that
surface nish is also superior.
Other capabilities cited are mirror
machining, since almost everything in the
aerospace industry has both right- and lefthands.
But while hyperMILL has reduced
cycle times on the shop oor by over 20%
and reduced programming times by upwards
of 50% in the of ce, the bene ts reach
further. “hyperMILL is much faster than
previous CAM systems and it handles ‘big
data’ much better than we have previously
witnessed. This has eliminated unforeseen
PC crashes and massively improved the
reliability, processing and delivery of our
data to the shop oor. Furthermore,
hyperMILL has so many ‘obvious’ features
and short-cuts that generate savings for the
end-user; these ‘obvious’ features don’t
appear on other CAM platforms.
“One feature that simpli es the
throughput of programs and parts is
hyperCAD. The Open Mind CAD system that
is integrated into hyperMILL is an excellent
platform that has now eliminated our
reliance on CAD packages like Inventor.
We can now expedite jobs through hyperCAD
to hyperMILL with seamless ease – yet
another feature that is making life easier for
our programming team.”
54 www.machinery.co.uk @MachineryTweets October 2019
/gatuno)
/pafeku)
/edocag)
/silefi
/
/voxovu)
/tovaso)
/www.machinery.co.uk