Latest investments a Gloucestershire subcontractor Adnet Precision Engineering have included 3- and 4-axis machining centres as well as fixed and sliding head turning centres.
Located in Brockworth on the outskirts of Gloucester, the company operates in the defence, pharmaceutical, aerospace, metrology, medical, telecommunications and semiconductor industries. It has ramped up its investment in machine tools to support ongoing growth.
The machines have been supplied by the South Coast machine tool specialist Dugard.
The first of these was a Dugard 760 XP machining centre, which was soon followed by another two Dugard 760 XP machines which gave the ISO: 9001 certified company 3 and 4-axis machining capability.
Adnet’s Caroline Day says: “Dugard has been a very good supplier. The customer service and support has always been amazing. We started with a Dugard 760 XP machining centre and we continued to buy more machines from there. With the three Dugard 760 XP machining centres, we have just one operator running the three machines. If the machines are extremely busy with short cycle time work, we may have two operators running the three machines.”
The next machine the company purchased was a Hanwha XD20IIV sliding head turning centre from Dugard.
Caroline said: “We already had one sliding head machine, but we were running out of capacity, so we invested in the Hanwha to add capacity. We reviewed the market and looked at other sliding head machine options, but as we had already built a strong relationship with Dugard from our machining centre purchases, and we were familiar with their excellent level of service and support - we opted for the Dugard Hanwha machine. This new machine is running parts more than 30% faster than our existing sliding head machine.”
With a maximum spindle speed of 10,000rpm on the main spindle and 8,000rpm on the sub-spindle, the machine has a spindle motor power of 2.2/3.7kW.
Most recently, the company purchased a SMEC SL2000SY twin spindle single turret mill/turn centre from Dugard. This has an 11/18kW spindle motor that provides remarkable levels of torque for maximum material removal whilst a Meehanite cast and structural design provide exceptional surface finishes, repeatability and precision.
Caroline said: “We have invested in this twin spindle machine with a single turret, as the plan was to replace two existing machines with the SMEC. So, this machine is doing a lot more work than the two machines previously did. With the twin spindles we can achieve a lot more work it is probably 30% more efficient than the two previous machines combined. The machine has far much more capability than the previous machines and it is achieving much faster production times. The purchases from Dugard demonstrate our ongoing commitment to investing in the latest technology thus delivering the best possible results for our customers.”