Established as a sliding-head turned parts subcontractor in 2001 by Michael Laybourne, Yorkshire Precision Engineering Ltd (YPEL) diversified into fixed-head turning six years later with the purchase of a new, Japanese-built Miyano BNJ-42SY twin-spindle, twin-turret lathe. The 42 mm bar-fed machine was supplied by the sales agent at the time, Macro Machine Tools, which became part of Citizen Machinery UK in 2011.
YPEL was so impressed with the lathe’s performance that when a similar, second-hand machine came onto the market a year later, Mr Laybourne and his wife Lynda, the financial director, snapped it up. Both machines have served as workhorses ever since, running virtually continuously on weekdays, including a considerable amount of lights-out production, and frequently at weekends as well.
In the intervening 20 years, a lot has changed at the Keighley, West Yorkshire factory, which is now run by Michael and Lynda’s sons Sam and Jack, both time-served engineers like their father. In November 2024, they bought a modern, larger Miyano of 65 mm bar capacity, a BNE-65MYY. Despite another six fixed-head lathes of various makes arriving on the shop floor over the years, the latest machine is the undoubted favourite of the second-generation directors.
Managing director Sam Laybourne commented, “Parts come off the BNE twice as quickly as one of our BNJs can produce them, greatly increasing productivity, and the two Y-axis turrets mean that components of higher complexity can be finished in one hit.
“The new Miyano is not only faster due to uprated feeds and speeds, but is also more rigidly and accurately built, and more thermally stable than other lathes on the shop floor. It translates into higher quality parts and less tool wear and breakages.”
He explained that a key feature of the BNE is its box sideways that are hand scraped to near-perfect smoothness and flatness. The process removes high spots on the hardened steel surface, lowering noise, virtually eliminating vibration and chatter, prolonging tool life and improving the surface finish on machined components.
Furthermore, box ways rather than linear guideways provide better rigidity for selecting higher cutting data when turning and especially when milling. It contributes substantially to the machine’s productivity, particularly as prismatic machining frequently accounts for between 20% and 50% of a cutting cycle in the Keighley factory.
Speaking of financial matters concerning the running of their subcontract machining business, technical director Jack Laybourne advised, “Since November 2020, when we purchased all the assets of a nearby subcontractor and secured significant contracts to take on many of the components it was producing, our headcount has risen to 28 and we have also doubled our annual turnover in that time.
“We are now actively replacing older plant with up-to-date, highly capable machines to speed production and reduce the number of operations needed to produce components, which are often completed in one hit, all to increase profitability.
“I calculated recently that the monthly amount we spend on repairing old machines on the shop floor would pay to finance a brand-new machine, so there is strong incentive for us to re-equip our workshop as fast as possible.”
YPEL has been in contact with Citizen Machinery UK since 2011, when the company took over responsibility for Miyano turning centres in the field. Jack Laybourne confirmed that the service they have received over the years has been consistently reliable.
It prompted him and Sam to visit the supplier’s stand at MACH 2022, where a BNE-65MYY was being demonstrated. The seed was sown and the lathe arrived in Keighley a couple of years later. The original intention had been to replace one of the older Miyanos that was no longer working, but Citizen managed to repair it so it continues in daily use, even after two decades.
There are many attributes of the latest Miyano that both brothers appreciate. One is its stability, both mechanically and thermally, which results in effortlessly holding tolerances down to ± 10 microns, although ± 0.1 mm is more generally stipulated on customers’ drawings. A wide range of materials is processed, from Duplex and Inconel through to engineering plastics.
Not only is the machine typically twice as productive as the early Miyano models, but there is scope for even shorter cycles using the BNE’s superimposed machining capability, where three tools can be cutting a part simultaneously at both spindles, despite the lathe having two turrets. This facility has not yet been adopted in Keighley, but will be in the future for the right jobs, namely reasonably long runs of parts with complex features, where the somewhat longer setup times can be justified.
YPEL staff was comprehensively trained by Citizen to program, set and operate the latest Miyano. The subcontractor opted to buy the relevant edition of Citizen’s Alkart Wizard conversational programming software, which bridges the gap between manual G-code data entry and full-scale CAD/CAM. It is particularly effective for generating cycles for complex, multi-path machining, including all necessary synchronisation codes to prevent the spindles and turrets from colliding, while also managing the hand-off of parts between the main and sub spindle. As an added bonus, the software helps with programming the older BNJs.
The beneficiaries of these technology advances are YPEL’s many customers, about 40% of which are in the oil and gas sector, with a further 20% operating in the medical industry. That the subcontractor has held ISO 9001 accreditation since the company started has led to a lot of work in many other sectors as well, including agriculture, electronics, marine and pharmaceuticals. Music enthusiasts may be interested that parts for bagpipes and grand pianos are occasionally machined; and pub-goers may well be staring at YPEL parts as their pints are pulled.
Sam Laybourne concluded, “The bottom line is that, if we could, we would like to put every component over 32 mm diameter – the maximum capacity of our sliding head lathes – onto the latest Miyano.
Especially for longer runs of 1,000- to 10,000-off, its one-hit production capability and extreme accuracy make it the go-to lathe on our shop floor.
“You set the machine and it doesn’t move. It just runs and runs, producing parts within tolerance all day long, and unattended overnight as well.”
The successful implementation of the Miyano BNE-65MYY on the shop floor in Keighley has prompted the subcontractor to further upgrade its capacity by placing an order for another new Miyano, a model BNJ-51SY7 LFV, for delivery in May 2026.
The 51 mm capacity lathe benefits from Citizen’s simultaneous 4-axis LFV (low frequency vibration) chipbreaking, which is capable of operating on the X and Z axes of both the main and sub spindles at the same time. The machine is therefore ideally suited to reliable, lights-out manufacturing of parts from malleable materials that traditionally create long, stringy swarf and require operator attendance to remove it.
