The West Midlands-based company additionally boasts a Walter Helicheck tool measuring machine, while it was also the first in the country to purchase a Walter Helitronic Power machine, in 1994.
According to director Allan Brown, rising orders from a UK and export customer base for a range of tooling, including special carbide reamers, end-mills, slot drills, step drills, routers and form drills, demanded this latest additional machine.
Able to produce tooling of 1 to 16 mm diameter – and to regrind tools from 3 to 100 mm diameter – the Mini Automation complements the company’s existing machines: two Helitronics with Disc Loaders; a Power and a Power Diamond; plus a Helitronic Classic Power and a Helitronic Power Production.
Supplied by Walter Ewag UK, a member of the United Grinding Group, the Mini Automation features Fanuc CNC plus the Helitronic Tool Studio software that, in conjunction with the optional Feedrate Optimiser functionality, leads to minimised grinding and overall non-productive times.
This automated investment has its roots in 2004, when the company installed its first automated solution, a Helitronic Power with Disc Loader. After that, the tooling specialist said “lights out production has the potential to double the working week, and we wouldn’t buy another tool grinder without automated loading capability”.
