£500,000 investment programme for subcontractor

Inca Geometric's joint managing directors, sister and brother Ann and Mike Cain, have embarked on the investment programme in response to a significant rise in the demand for subcontract machining. This has occurred as Inca has progressively diversified from its specialist machine tool, engineering and tooling operation to capitalise on its design, application, machining and build skills. While the previous core business is still very active, the upgrading of production areas has been led by a 200 per cent growth in orders from new customers in marine, defence, power generation, gaming, food and mechanical handling. Recent contracts have included machining components as small as miniature ball stops to generator frames 6 m by 2 m. The first installation of a £300,000 Dugard Eagle HMB-4 horizontal borer has been completed to satisfy a recent contract for long term supply of valve bodies and a range of very complex military components. Mr Cain explained how "the Eagle HMB-4 is a high specification machine that will enable us to load multiple pallets of smaller parts or produce single complex components up to the working strokes of 2,200 mm in X, 1,600 mm in Y and Z. The 110 mm quill diameter provides a W-axis of 550 mm over the 1,200 mm by 1,500 mm, 5 tonne capacity table." Ms Cain also commented how "the ability to run unmanned over long cycles was an important factor in selecting this machine. Even though it was a recent installation it has already saved up to 60 per cent on machining times compared to previous horizontal boring and machining centre methods, which were all very skill dependent."