25this month
The BS5750 quality standard is the subject of this month’s
comment article. Predecessor to today’s ISO9000 series
(which was actually released in the UK in July 1994), it is
being lambasted as costly and bureaucratic; but BS5750 is a
prerequisite for survival, we offer. Examples of companies that have
bene ted are given.
Being a light news month, the only big story concerns International
Metrology Systems (IMS), home of Ferranti CMMs, following their
namesake’s bankruptcy in December 1993 – Ferranti was the
originator of the CMM in the 1950s. IMS is now also able to provide
service and software for the equipment, following its purchase of
ServiceTec. The split between CMM manufacture and service was
one of the quirks of the sale of parts of Ferranti’s empire. Ferranti
collapsed because a company it bought in 1987, International Signal
and Control, made its money in illegal arms sales, started at the
behest of various US clandestine organisations. Subsequent
nancial and legal dif culties forced the bankruptcy.
On a technical front, a round shank toolholder where it is
impossible for the cutter to be pulled out has been patented by
Woodland Chucks’ managing director, Ken Head. Up for license, the
feat is achieved by having a very slightly tapered tool shank, the
large end being at the opposite end to the cutting edges and which
is gripped in a collet chuck. The development has been prompted by
244361_V23_MACH_Ceratizit 28/03/2019 11:08 Page 1
the increasing speeds and cutting forces exerted in modern CNC
machines, says its developer.
Our cover article this month takes a
look at the British machine tool
making industry as it gears up for
growth, now that recession has
passed. We give over 10 ½ pages
to this, but coverage of the
industry will become thinner and
thinner throughout this decade.
We presage that in our introduction, although also put the most
hopeful face we can on it: “Measured by the number of people
involved, machine tool manufacture in Britain appears to be in
irreversible decline. But appearances can be deceptive.”
Trade association the Machine Tool Technologies Association
(MTTA) says that much of the recovery in the industry since the great
UK recession of the early ‘80s has been reversed. But unlike the
early ‘80s, other countries’ industries have suffered an equally
punishing recession this time, we say. Yet, while we do export 51%
of our machine tool production, the technology that we import is of a
higher technology from these likewise battered countries’ rms.
There are positive words from the MTTA and its members,
however, on new initiatives and opportunity. The UK’s largest publicly
quoted machine tool distributor and maker, The 600 Group, is citing
recovery in sales: its latest revenue gure for 1993/94 is £96.7m
(£194m today); for 2018/19 the group is reporting $65m (£53m).
In 1994, the company had just launched its 2-axis CNC lathe, the
Tornado, and it had also opened The 600 Centre, a Loughboroughbased
showroom of both manufactured and factored machine tools,
the latter including Mitsui Seiki and FANUC. That activity is long
gone, but the company is still here, unlike many others we mention
in the 1994 report – somewhere around 25-30. And today, smaller
as it is, the 600 Group is seeing strong machine tool sales growth,
as we reported in our June issue, page 23 (https://is.gd/yuhuxu).
Returning to the theme of quality and another article in this August
1994 issue looks at the wider picture. Quality doesn’t just mean
making parts to drawing, it encompasses many other aspects of
business, too. The positive impact of the newly arrived Japanese car
industry in the UK is highlighted. One pressed parts maker has
received help from Toyota to up its process reliability and related
part quality and delivery credentials. Quality is now owned by those
that set and run the processes, not policed by rst-off inspection
checks and patrolling inspectors.
50
years ago
Quality standard’s cost under fi re; Ferranti collapse fallout seen in CMM market;
CNC machines prompt toolholder innovation; British machine tool industry recovers,
for now; quality is more than a correct dimension
august 1994
▼ ▼
aug 94
PA
PA
Key Events
Woodstock ‘94,
Saugerties,
New York; the
25th anniversary
of the orginal
1969 event
Oliver Berg/DPA/PA Images Flag: Miro Novak /stock.adobe.com
▼ ▼ ▼ ▼
First protests against
Fidel Castro’s government,
set up in 1959
The Provisional
Irish Republican
Army announces a
“complete cessation
of military
operations”
Peter
Cushing
(born
1913),
actor,
dies
since the country’s
anti-apartheid
sporting ban
The Russian army leaves
Estonia and Latvia, ending the
last traces of Eastern Europe’s
Soviet occupation
PA
South Africa draws
Test series 1-1 in its
rst tour to England
PA
/yuhuxu)
/stock.adobe.com