Star sliding-head lathes give subcontractor flexibility to diversify

The versatility of Star sliding-headstock lathes has allowed Wilco Manufacturing to diversify its business from a turnover 90% reliant on automotive work in the 1990s, principally the Rover Group, to 30% today, with the majority now made up of hardware, yellow goods, hydraulics and leisure. In 2003 the company started supplementing its 100 or so single and multi-spindle cam automatics and fixed-head CNC lathes with sliding-headstock, multi-axis turning centres of various capacities up to 32 mm diameter. In addition to broadening the scope of its manufacture, the other driving force behind the acquisitions was to eliminate costly secondary operations performed on conventional drilling and milling machines and capstan lathes in order to reduce manufacturing costs and improve product quality. So, when evaluating the available sliding-headstock lathes on the market, particular attention was paid to the power and speed of the driven tool stations and of the sub-spindle for reverse end-working. It was this that led to the selection of Wilco's three original Star SR-20RII lathes. Martin Lane (pictured), managing director of Wilco Manufacturing, Birmingham, says that between the first Star machine arriving and the installation of the next two, in excess of £100,000 of new work was won as a direct result of having sliding-headstock turn-milling capability. Securing new business has continued unabated ever since and Wilco's policy is to offer customers a diverse service in three areas: complexity of component produced, from a simple dowel to a complicated turn-milled part; the batch sizes it is prepared to undertake, which range from less than 500 to 500,000 off; and quick delivery, either Kanban, to schedule or discrete orders.