First taker of UMC-750 sings its praises

The Basildon-based subcontractor to the aerospace, medical, motorsport industries, as well as other sectors, has added the machine to its existing assets of 10 Haas lathes and mills. Company owner Allan Brodie explains: "We have a couple of Haas VF-4s and a VF-4SSs, all with fourth-axis rotaries. The work envelope is large enough to run multiple or different parts on the table in a single set-up, so we can knock the run times down. That saves us production time in the machine shop, and also those all important delivery times are cut, so it works out very well." The UMC-750 is currently alternating between cutting two batches for two separate customers at the 16-employee firm. The first is a run of aluminium extrusions to house linear drive motors. The second is producing aluminium parts for Swing Plane Perfectors, which are used by golf pros to dial in an accurate and repeatable swing. Adds Brodie: "The cycle time for the Perfector part was a respectable 13 minutes on our VF-4SS with rotary table. However, we've managed to reduce the cycle time to 11 minutes, thanks to the new UMC 5-axis. Over a batch of 1,000 parts, those two minutes per part add up to approaching a week in total time saved." And he underlines: "I've been buying Haas machines since 1997 and I know you can't do any better than the cost and specifications of the US-built machines. They are accurate and reliable, and the standard feature list is great. "I made a conscious decision to use only Haas machine tools. It gives us standardisation. Each of our operators is familiar with the Haas control, so they can move around the machines."