Manufacturer of industrial safety equipment, motor sport and electronics components acquired a two-spindle, three-turret turning centre to ease capacity limitations.
Manufacturer of industrial safety equipment, motorsport and electronics components, Vixen CNC has acquired over 12 new CNC machining and turning centres in the last five years Based in North Wales, UK, Vixen CNC is running at full capacity 24h/day for six days/week
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 14 Jul 2005 at 8.00am (UK)
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To ease capacity limits, Vixen added a Miyano ABX51-TH2 two spindle, three turret turning centre with Y-axis motion.
Operating Mazak, Nakamura, Star and other makes of machine tools, Vixen CNC’s managing director, Jake Wood, said about the Miyano: “When we buy a new machine tool we always buy kit with specifications beyond our current needs.
This is because you never know what work is around the corner and we don’t want to invest in machines that will be obsolete in a couple of years”.
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A twin turret, twin spindle turning centre has helped an UK aerospace subcontractor to improve its machining productivity by an average of 30%, and up to a staggering 50% on many components.
Wood said: “We invited machine tool suppliers to quote for the business and Peter Bewley (Bewley and Co – Miyano agent) came in and took two of our drawings and programs away to compare cycle times.
Within two days he came back with the results”.
Wood commented: “We were so impressed with the service level and cycle times we placed the order there and then.
Everything from build quality through to service has been fantastic.
Initially we hadn’t considered a Miyano, but we were soon ‘won over’ with the commitment, reliability, productivity and service of the staff and the product”.
Installed in March 2008, the Miyano ABX51-TH2 produces complex turned parts in the 25mm to 51mm diameter range.
It released capacity from the slightly larger turning centres.
However, within the two months since the acquisition the whole turning section is back to running at full capacity.
Despite running at capacity, the Miyano has ‘proven its worth’ with productivity improvements that have impressed Vixen as well as eased the burden on the busy manufacturer.
* Cycle times reduced – before Vixen CNC placed the order, the Miyano was tasked with two test parts – the machine now regularly produces these parts considerably faster than its predecessors, said Miyano.
One 303 stainless steel industrial safety nut required a square section milled on it as well as turning, drilling, tapping and chamfering.
The operation previously took 4 min 40s.
The Miyano ABX51-TH2 now machines the nut in 3 min 20s.
A large percentage of the time saved on this part is through the reduction in ‘non-cutting’ time (or air cutting time – Ed) with the tool indexing positions and feeding in and out being considerably faster than previous machines.
On an aluminium electronic motion control component the Miyano reduced the cycle time from 3 min 36s to 2 min 40s.
Like the previous part, a percentage of the productivity gain is in the ‘non-cutting’ time.
Contributing to these time reductions are the higher speeds driven tools and the increased rev/min.
Typically producing batches from 500 to 4,000, the Miyano ABX51-TH2 is used by Vixen CNC for complex component manufacture with certain parts having internal bore tolerances of less than 10 micron.
The ability to increase speeds and feeds and meet the tight accuracy demands is credit to the extremely rigid machine construction.
With an in-house casting manufacturing facility, Vixen CNC machines castings as well as billets of steel, stainless steel, aluminium and brass.
Combined with its exceptional machine tool capability, Vixen CNC is well positioned to meet the diverse needs of the subcontract industry.
Wood said that Vixen CNC has an extremely diverse capability range owing to the company’s inward investment in machine tools and staff.
The 13 employees are all time served or trained in-house and this adds an extra dimension to the business.
He added: “With regard to our machine tool philosophy of the highest specification products possible, we are not yet fully utilising the Miyano to its full capability.
The bottom tool turret has only seen two tools of the 12 used to date, however this will undoubtedly change as our work continually adapts to the varying needs of the market”.
Wood concluded: “Miyano came to us to conduct a weeks training and the results have been excellent.
Our machinists are now fully conversant and competent with the system.
The commitment of Miyano has been nothing short of remarkable from training to service and support – and we are extremely happy with our purchase.”.