Subcontractor cuts drilling and milling cycle times by up to two-thirds

Capable of producing parts weighing up to 7 tonnes within a 5,000 by 1,100 by 900 mm working envelope, the DMF machining centre has a linear motor that accelerates the spindle head in the X-axis at 6 m/s² to a rapid traverse speed of 80 m/min. Ufone's general manager, Gary Meusz commented: "Apart from allowing us to produce larger components, the DMF500 Linear is much faster than our 3-axis CNC travelling-table milling machines. "Drilling multiple holes around a ring or flange takes half the time or less, while thread milling is similarly rapid" Mr Meusz described the 23.5 kW/10,000 rpm spindle with 40 bar delivery of coolant or air through the centre as being a world apart from the 3,000 rpm spindle available on his existing CNC mills. "Using a solid carbide drill with through-coolant, hole production is three times faster than we were previously able to achieve. We are getting similar time savings on some milling operations using the latest indexable-insert cutters." The speed with which a job is turned around at the Dudley factory and delivered to the customer is crucial. Before the recession, 18 weeks was the norm, compared with 12 weeks now. Additionally, margins are down 50 per cent owing to fierce competition from China and other low-wage countries. Ufone is seeing a growing demand, especially in the offshore drilling sector, for larger, more complex components machined to higher levels of precision, which plays to the strengths of the DMF500 Linear machining centre.