A £750,000 press line investment will allow Phoenix Tooling and development to prove-out complex presswork projects.
The press tool design and manufacture specialist installed the 500-tonne Ching Fong press and full coil line, supplied by Worcester Presses, as part of a £1.1m investment drive to support customers in the automotive, construction, white goods, EV and medical sectors.
The GTX 500-D press delivers the longest tool bed (3.4m x 1.5m) in its history and is equipped with an impressive 3-in-1 Tomac decoiler, straightener and feeder line that allows the business to build larger tools and, more importantly, ‘prove out’ complex tooling projects.
This is a major development for the Aldridge-based business, with the company now able to give its growing customer base full confidence that the tooling produced will stamp components to the required customer production rates, quality, and consistency – all before it arrives at their respective factories.
The business also has the equipment needed to simulate full production testing and support a seamless handover process to its clients.
“We relocated to Shenstone Drive last year and had to make the decision whether to persevere with our 1930s Wilkins and Mitchell 300 tonne press,” explained Martin Mulvey, Managing Director of Phoenix Tooling & Development.
“After careful deliberation we took the decision to use the move to our new home as the perfect time to search for a new, more powerful press that had better control and ancillary equipment that could speed up our try-out & commissioning processes and give us the ‘proving out’ capacity we wanted.”
He continued: “Worcester Presses has been superb. Russell Hartill and his team spent lots of time exploring our requirements, challenging our approach, and then identifying possible solutions – the best one being the impressive Chin Fong GTX 500-D & Tomac 3 in 1 TLF4-800 coil line.”
Phoenix Tooling & Development, which has also invested in a new GF+ mikron machining centre with ‘WorkPartner’ automated palletising, pushed the £750,000 button on the press investment and started to plan for its installation.
Midlands Machinery was appointed by Worcester Presses to get the Chin Fong in place, and this required taking the roof partially off for two days, removing part of the outside verge to accommodate the crane and building a one-foot-deep pit to house it.
“The press, which weighs about 55 tonnes without the ram, would just about fit under the roof if we moved the air receivers to the side, something Worcester Presses were able to facilitate,” continued Martin, who started his working life with Phoenix Tooling & Development’s sister business Cooke Brothers.
“It took about two weeks from start to finish to get the press in place, commissioned and ready for accommodating our ongoing press tooling projects. Five of our staff have been trained on how to get the most out of it, giving us full flexibility on the shopfloor.”
Photo: Peter Marshall, Martin Mulvey (both Phoenix Tooling & Development) with Russell Hartill (Worcester Presses)