When Ben Halford founded Surface Generation in 2000 as a spin-off from an engineering consultancy business, he had good ideas and supportive investors. Which is just as well, because within a few years the company’s future
was hanging in the balance.

Mr Halford says: “The financial crisis of 2007/8 hit us hard, but with the support of our shareholders we developed something in which we’d seen a nascent interest: a rapid heating and cooling technology for the production of composite parts. We now employ 30 people here, and we are working hard to keep up with demand from some very well-known firms around the world.”

Surface Generation says its patented Production to Functional Specification (PtFS) technology gives manufacturers in the aerospace, automotive and consumer electronics sectors a significant improvement in cost, quality and delivery for precision-moulded parts.

“Most composite parts are ‘cooked’ — heat-cured — in an autoclave using an isothermal process, where the temperature that the part is exposed to is constant. If you want to make parts of varying sectional thickness, perhaps using a combination of different materials, it can’t be done in an autoclave, because different areas of the part need to be heated to different temperatures and cooled at different rates.”

The secret behind the success of PtFS is its use of a custom-designed chequer-board configuration, where each square on a mould tool is heated and cooled individually with pressurised air that is controlled by a computer. All types of materials can be processed, at temperatures up to 850°C — including thermosets, thermoplastics, metals and glass.

‘Torture parts’

Surface Generation has established a reputation for engineering solutions for challenging projects when no other processes appear to be working, according to Mr Halford.

“These are components — I call them ‘torture parts’ — where the general consensus is that they can’t be made. For example, we were asked last year to make a part incorporating a logo that wasn’t mouldable using typical processes. We solved the problem — and achieved 100% yield. In another case, we were able to cut a cycle time from 2hr to just 20min. Our process delivers that kind of very significant difference.”

Surface Generation’s success is also down to investing in manufacturing technology, such as SolidWorks and PowerMill CAD/CAM software, as well as CNC machines from Haas Automation (www.haascnc.com). A VF-3 machining centre with WIPS (Wireless Intuitive Programming System) was the first Haas machine to be installed (in 2012); this was followed by a Haas VF-2SS (super speed) around 18 months ago and — most recently — a Haas VF-4.

“Previously, we were sub-contracting parts to job shops, which just didn’t give us the necessary control, quality or flexibility. However, this was addressed immediately with the arrival of the VF-3. We looked carefully at two or three other brands of CNC machine tools, but Haas UK had an extremely good engineering and support team, and this gave us a great deal of confidence.”


A typical mould base at Surface Generation requires some 200hr of machining, and among the main challenges is the production of deep pockets in confined spaces. Here, the through-tool coolant capability of the VF-4 helps enormously. Surface Generation selected the Haas VF-3 as it was the smallest model of Haas vertical machining centre available on that particular size of base casting, which Mr Halford felt was a good indicator of the machine’s rigidity.

“Another good thing is that any of our staff can use a Haas with one day’s training. All the controls are the same, irrespective of machine size.” As well as running its Haas machines during the normal day shift, Surface Generation runs them ‘lights out’ through the night and at the weekend, making parts typically from steel but also from materials such as Invar and titanium. “We leave all three Haas machines running on a Friday night; on some jobs, they will still be running on Sunday. This is how we’ve geared up our business.”

Surface Generation recently secured a further £3.1 million of investor funding to help the company maintain its rate of development; its revenues in the 2014-15 financial year were £2 million — a 233% increase on the previous year. “No other company is doing what we do,” says Mr Halford. “We’re attracting the attention of some big-name manufacturers, so we’re definitely going to need more space and Haas machines, as our businesses in the USA, Taiwan and Japan bring in more orders.”