Unicut's investment pays dividends and prompts more of the same

Having just won a massive export aerospace contract from America and facing the running out of 20 mm turn/mill capacity, Unicut Precision visited the recent NC Engineering Open House at Watford where the £250,000 order was placed. Over the last five years Unicut Precision has installed 21 new machines of which 16 have been Citizen. The company policy is to maintain a plant list of equipment that is under five years to continuously improve competitiveness, maximise return on the investment and maintain high spindle utilisation while running around the clock. The company now has its biggest ever order book, up by more than 25 per cent over last year’s record trading and is currently recruiting two additional machine setters to fulfil the contract requirements. The sliding-head machine order placed by Unicut was for two Citizen K16 VIIs and a L20 VIII (pictured). Unicut Precision already has three of the latest generation Citizen L20-III machines, one installed in February 2006 and two in June 2005. The company also has two of the previous generation L20 machines that are now four years old but gave a direct comparison on cycle time when using the same program to machine parts. Joint managing director Charles Kenny points out that the new control and operational software immediately returned up to 30 per cent reduction in cycle times on some parts. “The roll-on effect has been to improve our productivity and especially our competitiveness that has enabled us to secure new business – hence the need for another L20 machine,” he said. The Citizen L20-III with main and subspindle can carry up to 21 tools of which nine can be driven. The machine can cut with two tools simultaneously which, with the new software and control system is able to reduce idle time by some 40 per cent. Meanwhile, the latest servo control technology, giving a torque improvement of almost a third, enables cutting times to be significantly reduced.