Stockholder and processor Eggleston Steel has invested around £3m in three Trumpf laser cutters which have boosted uptime, quality and speed.
Eggleston Steel is a family-owned company with 54 employees who help generate annual turnover in the region of £13 million. Although core business is general fabrication, Eggleston Steel serves a wide range of sectors that include architecture, construction, yellow goods, rail and aerospace.
To help boost revenue, around 15 years ago the company took a strategic decision to migrate steadily from its stockholding-only business model towards added-value processing, notably profiling.
“We started with a plasma cutter and within three years added our first Trumpf laser - a new 6kW, 4x2m CO2 model - to deliver higher levels of precision,” explained Operations Director John Ready. “The machine proved hugely successful and it changed our fortunes quite dramatically. We soon introduced a second Trumpf laser to support our growth in a busy period that saw us add a night shift, rent a nearby satellite facility and expand our main site.”
Having added two further lasers from another supplier, the company returned to Trumpf for its most recent investments.
The first of these, and the first of its kind in the UK, was a TruLaser Tube 7000 tube laser featuring 10m infeed and 6m outfeed. Installed during the summer of 2023, the business uses the machine to process 50-120mm diameter tube/box, with up to 12mm wall thickness. Although designed as a tube laser, the company also uses the machine cut angle bar, channel sections and non-standard items.
John Ready said: “Tube cutting was a new service for us, but since investing in the TruLaser Tube 7000 this activity now represents 10-15% of our business. Customers are really impressed with the cut quality.”
Eggleston Steel subsequently replaced its two flat-bed laser cutters with TruLaser 3040 and 3060 12kW fibre models, which arrived in December 2023 and January 2024. The company deploys the machines across the entire range of sheet thicknesses, from 2 to 25mm, on a daily basis.
“The quality and reliability of the machines is absolutely fantastic,” reported Mr Ready, who adds: “We receive very good customer feedback about our sheet profiling capabilities.”
“The Trumpf machines cut a lot quicker than our previous laser cutters. We had to slow the speed of our previous machines to get a better cut, whereas we can run at optimal speeds with TRUMPF laser cutters. We’re profiling at least four times faster on our core thicknesses of 6-12mm. With improved cutting speeds and production efficiencies, we roll these benefits out to our customer pricing structures.”