A specialist subcontractor has invested in four new Mitsubishi EDM machines in the last four years, with the latest arriving in May.
Located next to Silverstone racetrack, EDM Precision Technologies Ltd has a strong position in the F1 and motorsport industries.
The company works with over five F1 Teams and has received more than 150 F1 orders in the last 12 months. Some components for the suspension, gearboxes, wind tunnel and test components are ideally suited to being produced with EDM techniques.
It is not just motor sport though, since its inception, it has also machined precision components for other sectors including aerospace, defence, medical, press and mould tools too.
To carve a niche in the highly-competitive subcontracting market, the Northamptonshire business has specialised in EDM technology to set it apart from its rivals.
Now approaching 30 years in business, EDM Precision has a range of turning and machining centres, but with EDM drilling, spark erosion and 10 Mitsubishi wire EDM machines – it is evident where the focus of the company lies.
The company now has a Mitsubishi FX10K, QA10, FA20, FA20-S, two FA10-S, MV1200R, MV1200S, an MV1200S II plus an MV2400R, demonstrating its faith in the productivity, technology, reliability, service and support Mitsubishi products.
Company Director at EDM Precision, Paul Waldron says: “We started as a small general subcontract and toolmaking machine shop in 1992 and we quickly noticed our EDM work becoming more prominent. In 1994, we changed the company name to EDM Precision Technologies Ltd and bought our first Mitsubishi wire EDM machine, a CX20. Over the years we’ve had numerous CX20 machines. Our philosophy has been to replace old machines with new technology, so we’ve probably had over 30 Mitsubishi EDM machines over the last 30 years.”
The latest machine installed was a Mitsubishi MV1200S that arrived in May. Paul Waldron says: “This wasn’t a swap-out machine, we went from 9 to 10 wire EDMs with the MV1200S. We recently won a contract for producing parts for the power generation industry and the customer started to ramp up production, so we needed extra capacity. With an EDM cycle time of 4 hours per part and 60 parts required each month, we acquired the MV1200S.
The MV1200S and another EDM machine are producing four parts each day – if this was an older machine, the cycle times would be extended to the point that it would be a challenge to fulfil the order without introducing shift work.