New investments in turn/mill CNC machines at Maldon subcontractor C & M Precision have underlined its ‘One-hit CNC’ philosophy and are supporting major new contracts.
Managing Director John Cable says: “Our whole manufacturing philosophy is based around onehit machining – bar in at one end of the machine and a finished component out of the other end.
“The whole factory – every single machine – does that. We have 13 turn/mill machines in all – ten sliding head Citizen lathes and three Miyano fixed head machines – all supplied by Citizen UK. All the machines are IMECA magazine bar fed with a soft landing conveyor at the back end to collect the finished goods.”
In the past year C & M has built on its existing fleet of machines by adding two new machines. The most recent arrival is a new Miyano ANX 42 SYY fixed head turn-mill centre with a 42mm bar capacity, two turrets and two spindles.
The sub-spindle has an X-axis that allows it to follow the back of one of the turrets so that three tools can be cut at the same time – thus reducing cycle times.
The other new machine is a Citizen L12X sliding head machine with a half inch maximum bar capacity and a Yaxis on the back tool station opposing the sub-spindle which increases its milling capabilities.
John explains the thinking behind these investments: “We bought the L12 sliding head machine because we were
One-hit CNC investments support growth
getting more orders for smaller electrical components – contacts for example – so we wanted more capacity at that size.
“The Miyano ANX replaced an older M32 sliding head machine that we’d had since 2007. We needed to upgrade, and wanted a machine with LFV (Low Frequency Vibration) chip control. It would have been a lot more expensive to get a new M32 with LFV, so I made the decision to go with the larger diameter fixed head Miyano with LFV. It won’t do the work we put on the sliding head machines,
but we have enough shorter parts that required LFV to make it a good swap out.”
He says that LFV chip control is a key feature on any new machine. “We insist on LFV because we want to ensure top quality parts coming off the machine. The swarf controlling ability it gives us enables it to run much more efficiently because you are not untangling bird’s nests of swarf. It chips into smaller pieces – so it makes a non-free-machining material into a free-machining material. That means you don’t get the scratches and dents associated with swarf wrapping round the component and you aren’t scrapping parts. All the machines coming in now have LFV. We had our first machine with it six or seven years ago and I won’t buy anything without it.”
Complementing its machining investments, C & M has also invested in a new purpose-built, temperature controlled inspection room to house a new OGP E7 SmartScope optical measuring system.
John says: “It makes our inspection more efficient, takes out potential operator errors, and it can measure parts a lot more quickly than an operator can.
“It is easy to program, it is very similar to programming a CNC machine, and once you have got it programmed and set you can just put the component down, it finds it on the table and it runs the program. It is incredibly fast and the measurements are guaranteed to plus or minus a micron.
“It gives our customers confidence in our accuracy. One of our major customers has the same system so they know our measurements are directly comparable to theirs.”
New orders
This emphasis on quality parts is winning big new contracts for
C & M Precision. It has just picked up a three-year contract with a large multi-national organisation whose products go into a wide range of markets. John says: “They came to C & M because they recognised our capabilities, we’ve got the right equipment and we have a re-investment strategy. Customers don’t want to go to a company working on old machines – and everyone wants their parts made on Citizens and Miyanos because they know they are going to get quality parts.”
Another customer, which manufactures mailing equipment has just committed to 6,000 machine hours for 2025. John says: “We have worked for them for some years, but always on an ad hoc basis. Their French parent company moved the production of one of its machines to the UK factory and its machine shop couldn’t cope with all the work. They decided not to invest in their own machine shop, but to
outsource all the work to us. They see the new machines going and they have confidence that they can rely on us.”
A third customer was having parts machined in high volumes at a company in the north of England. John explains: “Whenever there was a problem it was a logistical nightmare for them . We have been working for this company since day one and were doing some smaller volume work. I asked them if they had any high volume work we could do. They gave us the price we had to get to and we beat that price. They have literally moved all the work to us and are ordering a million parts at a time, guaranteed to be called off within 12 months.”
Summing up, John says: “We are holding our own, we’ve got a good machine base – all relatively new with an ongoing investment programme – and we are actively looking to take on more staff and more challenges.”
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