Currently operating out of 16,000 ft2 premises on the Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire border, £6 million turnover Phoenix CNC is looking at the possibility of moving into a purpose-built 40,000 ft2 complex within the next two years.
Managing director Glenn Richardson says in particular they will be working on one customer’s aircraft, and changing focus from a speedshop to more long-term strategic work. He says: “One customer has 15 years worth of orders ahead for its new aircraft.”
Whatever changes in production may be coming down the line, the company keeps on top of production process, thanks to Vero.
At the moment, its milled parts are predominantly leading edge and trailing edge airframe rib components for aircraft wings produced from aerospace spec aluminium and titanium. At least 20 batches of parts are produced daily. “We manufacture hundreds of different types of components, and there can be over 1,000 job cards going through the factory at any one time,” says technical director John Tolson.
Phoenix runs eight 5-axis CNC machines in a fleet of 24 machine tools, all fed by Edgecam CAM software (0118 975 6084). John Tolson, technical director, has used Edgecam and its predecessor, Pathtrace, for more than 25 years, and now finds its 5-axis capability to be particularly important.
“Designers often come up with parts that are difficult to manufacture. Edgecam’s 5-axis capability overcomes that for us by producing good, reliable NC code to machine complex components,” he says.
Many complex jobs can be done in a single set-up on a 5-axis machine, saving time and reducing errors, through better tool orientation.
Another important consideration for Tolson is the ability to import third-party CAD files, such as CATIA (Dassault, 01223 346900).
A second piece of software from the Vero stable, Javelin, helps Phoenix CNC to comply with the aerospace industry’s demand for traceability. The Javelin production control system is the mainstay of its office and shopfloor procedures.
Production planner Gary Jordan explains: “As well as running Javelin on a number of computers in the office, we also have a full licence in the inspection department, and three shopfloor data capture terminals in the production area.
“Because Javelin integrates everything we do, we’re using it to purchase all materials to the correct specification, and issuing the planned release of materials from our stores to the job card, along with the goods received notes for all materials. This means we can provide traceability, which is a massive selling point for us.”
Javelin’s shopfloor data capture function lies at the heart of its production process. This shows the status of every job, and gives the ability to drill down to all the key information. This is particularly valuable when customers enquire about their jobs.
Shopfloor workers log on to Javelin with their own personal bar code; then enter a particular job and operation. “Each job usually has at least two milling operations, some will have three, some four, all of which are captured on Javelin. Logging all operations in this way, which only takes seconds, keeps us in complete control of every aspect of production,” Jordan adds. The software also enables the company to see the status of each CNC machine.
