Advanced Engineering Techniques (AET) (
www.aetuk.com), which has customers in the road transport, coach and bus, construction equipment and rail sectors, supplies finished and assembled components line-side using a range of in-house services that include laser cutting, metal forming, press-braking, fabrication, robotic welding, machining and assembly.
Founded in 1989, AET is one of the largest and fastest-growing sub-contract engineering companies in the North of England. Based in Sheffield and operating from a 65,000sq ft facility, the company employs 180 people and has
a yearly turnover in excess of £11 million.
AET is a major user of Haas machines (
www.haas.co.uk), managing director David Birch buying the company’s first after seeing one being put through its paces at Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Park.
“Our CNC machining workshop is now exclusively Haas. We had a couple of older machines that needed replacing, and in 2002 we bought two Haas verticals — a VF-1 and a VF-5. We have continued to invest in Haas, and we’re currently running four lathes and five mills.
“Our latest purchase was a VF-9, installed at the end of 2014. We decided on the VF-9 because its large bed gives us real flexibility. We machine some very large components, such as chassis for double decker buses and tipping links and arms for diggers.
“The VF-9 is powerful with lots of torque, which is ideal because we often use large-diameter end mills when machining stainless steel.
“We are currently using it to machine railway fishplates — a metal bar that is bolted to the ends of two rails to join them together, usually using four or six bolts. The top and bottom edges are tapered inwards, so the device wedges itself between the top and bottom of the rail when it is bolted into place.
“We take advantage of the long table on the VF-9 and load it up with as many parts as possible. Our fixturing allows us to drill and machine 10 fishplates in one set-up. These are 45mm-thick EN-24 mild steel, and we use a 32mm U-drill to cut the bolt-holes. We specified through-spindle coolant with this machine, which has cut our cycle time for the drilling operation by 40%.”
The Haas VF-9 VMC has a work envelope of 2,134 x 1,016 x 762mm, a 30hp spindle (both 40 and 50 taper versions are available) with a maximum speed of 8,100rev/min, and a 24-pocket side-mounted tool changer.
“These machines have helped us to evolve,” says Mr Birch. “We can now simply design the parts on our OneCNC CAD/CAM system, and the finished program can be downloaded via a USB stick to the machine; it really is that simple. We have hundreds of parts programmed; we simply select the required component, and the machine takes care of the rest. Our operators can easily make any adjustments directly at the control.”
AET’s machining capability has helped the company to attract industry giants such as JCB, Alexander Dennis and Terex to its growing customer base, but supplying directly to these kinds of companies means AET has to be sure that the quality of its work is excellent.
“We certify our own products, which means that when they leave here, they have been checked to the standards the client requires and can go directly into service without further inspection by the customer.”
Service has been another important factor in AET’s decision to invest in Haas machines.
“In the 13 years we’ve been running Haas machines, any problems have been sorted out on the first visit. The service guy is here the next day, or sometimes the same day we report an issue, and he has always had all the parts necessary to get a machine up and running. He’s never left us without solving the problem.”