TURNING KNOWING WHERE TO TURN
1989 Ford Sierra Cosworth RS 500. Many
parts on this age of car are simply no longer
available, so they are produced on the Haas
machines.
MANUFACTURING, BUT NO MACHINE SHOP
At Dudley-based TWP Manufacturing, in-house
turning is also a recent phenomenon, with
this 25-year-old company only opening its
CNC machine shop at the beginning of 2019
– turning being the most recent machine
technology added. Once again, it was the
desire to make components needed for its
proprietary products that spurred the in-house
manufacturing route. These products include
photographic darkroom and studio
equipment, gardening products (including
wheelbarrows) and security anchors. The rm
also provides subcontract pressworking and
injection moulding services to a wide range of
industries, particularly the automotive sector.
The company’s machine shop boasts
vertical machining centres and a singlespindle,
xed-head bar auto, but in May 2020
the company bought its rst sliding-head twinspindle
lathe, a 20-year-old Citizen Cincom
M32 equipped with an Iemca Boss 432r
barfeed. It was originally sold in 2000 by the
Japanese manufacturer’s agent for the British
and Irish markets, NC Engineering, which in
2008 became a wholly owned subsidiary,
Citizen Machinery UK ( www.is.gd/hexase ).
Phil Stanley, a director of TWP
Manufacturing explains: “We were
previously outsourcing the
production of a lot of our turned
parts, including to
subcontractors in the Far East.
“However, it became
apparent that, the way we were
expanding, it would be
necessary to bring component
manufacturing in house to cope with
the higher volumes, as well as to have
more control over production.”
To ful l the predicted quantities, the
company recognised that it needed a turning
centre with more speed and capability than
its existing xed-head lathe without driven
tools, as when using this machine there was
frequently a requirement for additional
operations.
Sometimes a component needed to be
parted off and reversed in the chuck, if it
required machining on the reverse end.
If milling and drilling were involved, these had
to be accomplished by setting up the job on a
machining centre. Furthermore, many
components formerly required manual depipping,
adding extra labour cost content to
their production.
None of this is necessary on the Cincom.
It is able to synchronously and automatically
transfer a component from the main spindle
to the counter-spindle for back-end machining
while front-end operations are carried out
simultaneously on a new length of bar.
Prismatic features are added in the same
cycle using live cutters and the tool carrier’s
Y-axis. Components come off the lathe pipfree
after parting off, due to close control
over the machine’s spindle speeds and feed
rates. Production times have drastically
reduced from, for example, 3.5 minutes down
to a single one-minute cycle without any
manual intervention, allowing parts to go
straight to plating.
Says Stanley: “The speed and surface
nish we are achieving are just incredible and
the fact that there is no operator intervention
means that we are able to implement lightsout
production, which we are looking to do
later this year.”
In the rst few of months of operation, the
Cincom M32 was devoted to large volume
production of one particular component, but
another four part numbers have now been
Pre-sales time studies and cutting trials
carried out by Citizen Machinery UK showed
that all ve components could be produced
within tolerance at the required speed. The
calculations were carried out following a visit
by managing director Edward James and
regional sales engineer Warren Garratt to the
Dudley factory, during which the company was
advised on how best to proceed with its inhouse
turned parts production strategy.
Concludes TWP Manufacturing’s director:
“Even though the machine was 20 years old
and we bought it independently on the
second-hand market, from the outset Citizen
have been behind us.
“First they demonstrated the same type of
machine in their showroom, which I would say
was a light-bulb moment for us, following
which they wrote the rst program and carried
out a cycle time calculation, repeating the
same procedure for four further components.
“They supported us through machine
installation and commissioning, helped with
tooling, setting-up and maintenance, and
trained us to operate the lathe and their
Alkart CNC Wizard programming system.
“If their assistance had not been
forthcoming, without a shadow of a doubt we
would not have been able to progress,
especially as some of our operators have
never used a machine like the Cincom before.
“The support we have received all the way
through these processes has been brilliant
and has enabled us to take a massive step
up the ladder in respect of in-house
production of turn-milled components.”
added. All are machined from 1”
hexagonal steel bar and annual
production will exceed
200,000-off.
Citizen Machinery UK stepped up to help TWP
Manufacturing get its independently acquired, 20-year-old
Citizen Cincom M32 into full and productive operation
www.machinery.co.uk | MachineryMagazine | @MachineryTweets | October 2020 17
/hexase
/www.machinery.co.uk