A large-capacity vertical turning lathe will boost capacity and capabilities at metal industry supplier and subcontractor Bowers and Jones.
The company is a leasing designer and manufacturer of roll tooling and equipment supplied to steel and copper mills around the world.
The machine is a DN Solutions VTR 1216F large-capacity, wide-column, ram-type vertical turning lathe was supplied by Mills CNC, the exclusive UK distributor for DN Solutions and Zayer machine tools in the UK and Ireland.
The machine, a VTR 1216F, was acquired, primarily, to fulfil an order from a new steel mill customer located in the US to machine batches of high-precision straightening rings.
Additionally, owing to the machine’s size, power, precision and versatility, the new investment will also help generate new business opportunities and growth in the US and other markets, consolidate its supply chain position with existing steel mill customers, and increase and improve its UK precision subcontract machining operations.
The new machine was installed at the company’s manufacturing facility in Bilston, near Wolverhampton, and joins three, previously acquired (Doosan and DN Solutions’) machines Mills has supplied to the company over the last four years.
Bowers & Jones, under new ownership since 2020 and led by managing director, Jane Sommerville, and her team, is committed to continuous improvement and, as such, regularly monitors and benchmarks the performance of its manufacturing operations in order to identify and address current and future production inefficiencies and bottlenecks.
The roll-out of the company’s improvement programme, first initiated when the change of ownership occurred four years ago, has been instrumental in Bowers & Jones streamlining and strengthening its in-house machining capacity and capabilities as a route to helping it achieve real, planned and sustainable growth.
The acquisition of new machine tools has been instrumental in helping Bowers and Jones strengthen its supply chain relationships with existing customers and secure new roll tooling business contracts with new customers.
Bowers & Jones supplies its high-performance roll tooling and equipment to companies around the world and has recently made inroads into the US steel market.
The new machine investment was primarily made to meet the needs of a recently acquired US customer whose sections are used extensively in the US rail and construction sectors.
Jane Sommerville said: “We needed a new large-capacity vertical lathe, specifically, to machine large diameter straightening rings for the customer.”
The Fanuc-controlled 50” chuck VTR 1216F is a beast of a machine boasting a maximum turning diameter of 1600mm and a maximum turning height of 950mm.
Equipped with a powerful, high-torque spindle, a servo-driven 12-tool ATC and an innovative quad tool holder with fast indexing that enables the use of four tools directly via the ram, the VTR 1216F delivers impressive processing speeds, improved machining flexibility, high accuracies and repeatability’s, and increased productivity.