5-axis spins £200 saving per part

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East Sussex subcontractor, Dicker Precision has purchased its first 5-axis vertical machining centre to cut the number of operations, and hence the cost, when machining stainless steel components from billet.

The German-built Spinner U620 Compact was supplied as a turnkey package with tooling, the initial part program and training, by UK and Ireland agent, Whitehouse Machine Tools.

Deputy systems manager Brandon Love, said, "The investment was triggered about a year ago by one of our existing customers asking for nine variants of a pump housing to be machined from solid 316 stainless steel. Some features have tight tolerances, such as 30 microns on hole diameter and 20 microns on position.

"We started off machining them on a three-axis VMC using indexable-insert boring bars, high-speed steel rippers and various other tooling including taps. It took four hours to complete each housing in five operations. Quite frankly, we were finding it difficult to make any profit on the contract.

"However, unlike the other stainless steel pump housings we manufacture for this company, which are produced from castings that need to rest before operations to relieve internal stresses, the latest components are produced from billet so we realised we could machine them in two operations."

To make this a reality and improve the economy of production, however, either a 5-axis VMC or a 4-axis horizontal machining centre was needed.

Luckily, the quantity of the new pump housings rose during last year to between 20 and 40 per month, which justified the purchase of a new machine. Dicker Precision already had experience of working with Whitehouse Machine Tools, which had previously delivered an Italian-built Biglia twin-spindle CNC bar auto with two Y-axis turrets to the Hailsham factory to streamline the production of a family of aluminium switch cover assemblies.

The U620 Compact was producing the pump housings within two days of arriving on the shop floor. Based on the machine's hourly rate, halving the cycle time resulted in £200 being saved on the production of each component. Admittedly, £60 was spent on carbide inserts for each component whereas the tooling cost is double using solid carbide, but nevertheless the reduction in manufacturing cost is considerable and will help to amortise the cost of the machine quickly.

Unsurprisingly, owing to the reduction in the number of operations, lead-time from start of production to delivery of a batch is down from one and a half weeks to three days, with two days the aim. The customer has also commented that the current components are of significantly better quality. All housings delivered were within tolerance before, but some might have been near the top or bottom limit, causing niggles during pump assembly. Now dimensions are all close to the centre of the tolerance bands, making life easier for the customer.

http://dickerprecision.com/

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