Comments ECS operations director Luke Anderson: “A significant proportion of our work is repeat business and we operate in and across a number of high technology sectors where accuracy, reliability and cost-competitiveness are essential. Although we had no issues with our previous business model, increasing cost-down pressures facing our customers and long-term agreements signed with a number of them stipulating that we would contribute to overall cost reductions meant we had to strategically review our manufacturing operations to ensure ECS’ long-term growth and profitability.”
As part of this process, ECS’s existing machining arrangements were re-examined.
Kim Perrin, director, contracts at ECS, explains: “We knew that being able to satisfy the majority of our machining requirements in house would make us more flexible, better able to manage, control and make more efficient our work flow and production scheduling, and strengthen our position in our customers’ value and supply chains. With the right balance of machines, we also knew we would be able to reduce costs.”
So over the last two years, ECS has invested in 10 used machine tools from Bristol-based Machine Tool Sales Online (0117 965 2706), and two new CNC machines from MACH Machine Tools (0845 602 2787), again based in Bristol.
Due to protracted lead times for new machines, the directors of ECS decided to invest in a balance of used and new machines.
A meeting at the 2014 Southern Manufacturing show, where MTSO was exhibiting, proved profitable. Two machines – a Haas SL 10 slant-bed lathe and a Haas TM 1P vertical machining centre – were ordered at the show and installed a few weeks later. These were followed up with further investments in used machines from MTSO in subsequent months, including a Hardinge GS-200 MSY (multi-tasking lathe) with driven tools, Y-axis, sub-spindle and a Samsys barfeeder; a Hardinge Elite 8/51 lathe with sub-spindle, full C-axis capability on both spindles and a barfeeder; a Hwacheon Hi-Tech 200B lathe with driven tools and a bar puller; and two Bridgeport vertical machining centres: a XP1000-30 and a XP600.
The relationship developed between ECS and MTSO has seen the former invest in two new CNC machining centres from MACH Machine Tools – a company founded by MTSO’s Dave Andrew and now run by directors Matt Andrew and Marc Bowers.
It invested in two MACH 1020 linear vertical machining centres with fourth-axis units, BT40 10,000 rpm spindles (with through-spindle coolant capability), a 24-position ATC and a Fanuc 0i-MD control with extended memory, as well as other machine tools and equipment from MACH Machine Tools, most notably a MACH VS-1 turret-type manual milling machine.
Concludes Luke Anderson: “Bringing our machining capabilities in house, from virtually a standing start, has paid dividends. We are more productive, more flexible and are better able to control manufacturing costs.”
First published in the energy supplement of the July 2016 issue of Machinery magazine
