Road Trip

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The MTD team recently went on a road trip with Jason Butler, the Sales Director at Mazak UK to visit customers and take a closer look at how the extremely diverse subcontract machining industry is utilising the diverse machine tools from this world-leading brand.

On the first visit, Jason and the MTD team went to FT Gearing Systems Ltd in Aldershot, a manufacturer of precision machined components and gear technology solutions for the aerospace and defence industry. The company has a complete suite of Mazak machine tools and upon arrival, a Mazak engineer was installing the company’s latest acquisition, an Integrex i-100S. The new Integrex i-100S is adding to a plant list that already includes a Mazak Integrex i200s, three Integrex i200, a QT10n Smart 200, a QT10N MY, two 300MY machines, a 200MY plus others – a journey that started back in 1998.

Alluding to the latest acquisition, Jason tells MTD: “The component going on this latest machine is one we know very well, and another customer is doing the same part. So, we understood the application very well, but it’s not just about the machine tool – in this instance, it’s also about the ancillary equipment.”

“The machine is a full 5-axis simultaneous Integrex and the i-100. It is typically a six or 8-inch chuck machine with 52mm bar capacity and a full contouring B-axis. This machine has been geared up with 72 tools and we can put sister tooling in there to take it over 120 tools. We must look at the axes on this machine with head one, head two and the synchronisation on the machine. Head one will pick a part from head one and the accuracy will be down to microns.”

Looking at the ancillary equipment on the machine, Jason continues: “We have to look at how we can control stability, and this is why we have gone for a very high-level swarf management system that incorporates 70 bar switchable coolant. We also have chillers on this machine to keep the coolant at an ambient temperature. The part is tied to a very tight tolerance, so we must bring probing into play during the manufacturing process.”

The machine has been loaded with four probes and alluding to this, Jason continues: “In this instance, we have to use three probes on this part because the stylus on the probe is different to get into the features in the bores. So, you may have to use a standard stylus or a dog-leg probe. We are using the Renishaw RMI-Q that is equipped to give us the ability to house up to 4 probes on the machine.”

Looking at the journey that FT Gearing has made with Mazak, Jason recalls: “We started with a machine back in 1998. We started with simplistic machines and down the years we have installed machines with driven tools, Y-axis second spindle, then J-Series Integrex’s and I- Series Integrex’s – it’s a continuous growth and development programme. It’s not going to stop there.”And the journey for Jason and the MTD team didn’t stop there either, as they travelled onward to GW Martin in Eastleigh. The company made its first investment in Mazak machines over 15 years ago and those same Multiplex machines are still running efficiently. Mazak was invited back to GW Martin just over two years ago and the latest arrivals are part of a wider £2.5m investment. Investing in the latest generation Mazak Multiplex W-200Y and HQR-200MSY machines, GW Martin’s Richard Blake says: “These are very rigid machines. We’ve had two Mazak Multiplex machines here for over 15 years and they have never missed a beat and they hold tolerances on tough steel machining all day long. So, the thermal stability of the machines is really, really good and we need that for this particular part.”

Looking closer at the Mazak Multiplex W-200Y, Richard says: “The Multiplex W-200Y has two turrets and two spindles that are opposed to each other. There is a partition in the middle, so you can run it as two individual machines or you can have one spindle picking up from the other. The turrets both have 12 driven tools and in the billet machining market up to around 250mm diameter, these are very good machines.”

Giving his perspective on why Mazak won the GW Martin business, Jason Butler continues: “I think we won the business mainly down to the level of support that we demonstrated. There are over 360 machines in our portfolio, and we have to look at the application quite seriously to understand our customers’ needs, understand what the return on investment is, the cycle time – and how we can implement that. The applications team are heavily involved in this, as there is a great deal of automation involved. GW Martin put the right applications team together to work with our applications team and we developed the process at our technology centre, pre-delivery of the first machine. This meant that the technology was proven before the investment arrived.”

Looking at the HQR-200MSY installation, Richard says: “This is used as a barfeed machine. So, we have gone for both a billet machine with a gantry loader and a 3m barfed machine. We make a lot of these parts every hour, short cycle times are critical. The HQR-200MSY is a very rigid machine and we are machining high tensile steel using 70bar high-pressure coolant. This allows us to stick a 30mm U-drill into the part very quickly at 5XD.”

With two spindles and two turrets, Richard confirms: “You have full capabilities on both spindles, and this makes it quite easy to balance out what you are doing on the machine. If you have a component with a lot of work on one end and not so much on the other end, you can use both turrets on one spindle to counteract that. There’s a lot of flexibility in the HQR-200MSY design as we can use both turrets on both spindles to balance machine.”

Concluding on the relationship with Mazak, Richard says: “We have been very impressed. The way we have collaborated has worked really well and their people are technically very good. We have learnt a lot from them, and I think they have learnt something from us too.”

The third and final visit of the road trip took the MTD crew to Dalau Ltd, a fluoropolymer specialist in Clacton-on-Sea that has just installed a Mazak Quickturn 250MSY.

Sam Day from Dalau says: “Whenever we purchase a machine it’s for a specific product solution. This particular part is something we have been making for a number of years, but previously it was machined on a fixed head lathe and then taken to a vertical machining centre for finishing. This was completely inefficient.”

“We approached Mazak for a turnkey solution, and they created a vacuum solution for the sub-spindle, which is very important to what we do as we can’t be touching components too aggressively as we are machining soft plastics that need a deft touch. We worked on a solution with Mazak, and they nailed it!”

Alan Reeve from Mazak says: “The machine was bought robot ready with an automatic door and a robotic interface, so it had the fundamentals there ready. We then supported Dalau and the robot supplier in setting up the interface to work exactly as they wanted it to.”

The company already had a Mazak Quickturn 250MSY machine that arrived a year before the second machine with a robotic loading system. Looking at how the components are now machined on the Mazak Quickturn 250MSY compared to the previous workflow, Alan says: “The parts were manually turned in two operations and then milled on a 5-axis machine in another two operations. Now, a solid billet can be machined in the main and sub-spindle and then the robot removes the completed part in a much shorter cycle time.”

Looking at the challenges of the project, Sam continues: “The handling of PTFE and everything else we do is supercritical, especially the finished part coming off the machine. This made vacuum the main challenge. Furthermore, we did not want to leave the process as a manually loaded task, so we invested in a cobot. To put a robot into a manufacturing environment felt like a challenge – but it wasn’t a challenge! It is so simple and so intuitive, and Mazak was very helpful in integrating it into the machine. The whole thing has been seamless.”

“The relationship with Mazak has been bred from the previous purchase and the service and support that we have previously received. The support is ‘second to none’ and our guys on the shop floor can call Mazak, relay their issues and get immediate technical support. If there is a callout required, we know they will be here the next day without fail.” concludes Sam.

To summarise what the MTD team learnt from its road trip with Mazak; the build quality, stability, rigidity and subsequent longevity of the machines is a given – after all, you don’t become a world-leading brand from selling sub-par products. The level of service and support was evident. Each of the three customers had placed repeat business based upon the level of support and technical assistance provided. In the case of GW Martin and FT Gearing, these companies bought their first Mazak machines 15 and 23+ years ago respectively, so the level and quality of support have clearly remained a core philosophy of Mazak – and it undoubtedly paves the path to repeat business.

The other key point was that with over 360 machines in the Mazak portfolio, the company has the product diversity and the technical expertise to be a complete solution provider. In the case of FT Gearing, Mazak took the solution beyond a standard multi-axis machine to a solution for tight tolerance components. This required very high-pressure coolant and swarf management, chiller units to retain an ambient temperature and up to four measuring probes. When it came to GW Martin, the Mazak team worked hand-in-hand with GW Martin to understand their needs and create an automated cell for machining high-tensile steel billets. At the other end of the component spectrum, Dalau had challenges around the handling of sensitive plastic parts. Mazak not only created an automated solution but also instigated component handling protocols like vacuum chucks to retain impeccable component quality.

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