Since the formation of Brecon Designs in 2007 followed by a merger with another local engineering company, Infinite Engineering Design, in 2018 to form Combined Engineering Services (CES), Steve Willams, Managing Director and the team have seen continued growth. From humble beginnings with a “machine shop” housing just a turret mill, manual lathe and wire eroder, they now have a substantial machining capability. This includes several CNC milling and turning machines along with a couple of wire eroders. Their equipment allows them to support the business in the manufacture of tooling, jigs and fixtures, along with the design and build of special purpose machines.
CES made the first step into CNC milling with the investment in an XYZ VM 4000 bed mill and Mr. Willams sees that it was the ProtoTRAK control that made them gravitate to XYZ. He comments “As with many companies, our first step into CNC was made with great trepidation but we gelled with the control and, since that first machine purchase, the company now have 7 more XYZ bed mills with different capacities and generations of controls, along with a flatbed lathe that also has the ProtoTRAK control”.
This progressive and forward-thinking business located just off the Heads of the Valleys in South Wales has now made further investment to enhance their capability and help to improve productivity. Chris Bow, the Design Director at CES explains “The bed mills have served us well and continue to do so, but it became apparent that we needed to do something different on our next machine tool purchase to remain competitive. When we are not successful in winning work following a quote, we always look at why didn’t we win that job. These investigations led us to look at our machining capability. We arranged a visit to the XYZ head office in Devon to look at several options available to us. On our return we concluded, following the advice provided by the XYZ sales team, that the 750 TMC with its enclosed layout would be a good fit for our business. This machine would allow us to improve material removal rates and reduce cycle times due to the machines 11kW (15hp) BT40 spindle. Added to this the travels of 743mm in X and 425mm in Y mated with the 20 station BT40 tool changing carousel would open up the opportunity to load a number of parts on the bed at the same time and help us to push towards lights out machining, which in turn would help us achieve the goal of lowering our manufacturing cost per part ”.
Chris continues with the justification of the purchase by adding “Another improvement for the business that we could see was better utilization of the staff due to less operator input during part manufacture. Being able to walk away from the machine for the whole of the process brings its own increase in efficiency creating more capacity within the workshop and helping to reduce the takt time when we build one of our special purpose machines”.
Now the machine is installed and running, CES are benefitting from the flexibility that the TMC range from XYZ offers. Having taken advantage of the optional front mounted electronic handwheels, all the machine programmers and operators at CES can jump on the machine and use the machine in a manual capacity for simple machining operations if required. The transition to the TMC from their existing bed mill products was very easy due to the resident conversational programming in the control and having made the investment in CADCAM, CES are now in a position to use all of today’s latest technology both on the ProtoTRAK 15” touchscreen RMX control or through CADCAM to manufacture parts quickly and cost effectively.
Chris makes a closing comment “The one thing that we didn’t see coming when the machine was installed was the enthusiasm from the team of machinists here at CES. They all have a desire to use the machine and help the business to reap the benefits of this new technology. Due to the software enhancements such as the Defaults setting where each operator can set the control features to their own liking, the TRAKing feature to put them in control by winding the handwheels to execute the program and the fact the machine has been fitted with a swarf conveyor to cut down on machine cleaning time, all the team have shown willingness to get involved. This is all helping the company to move forward and be more competitive when it comes to quoting for work as the enthusiasm from the team means they are now looking at manufacturing parts in a different way and employing production methods that were not possible on our older machines. It’s not just the machine that is making a difference here at CES but the staff as well, as they look at using better production techniques rather than stick to the tried and trusted methods we have always employed”.