With over 40 staff and a raft of high-specification multi-axis CNC machine tools, Unicut Precision (www.unicutprecision.co.uk) has established an enviable reputation based on its skills, quality and investment in technology — the latter confirmed by its latest investment in six Citizen sliding-head lathes and a Miyano fixed-head turning centre. Moreover, the company has recently taken on three new apprentices.

The £760,000 investment saw the installation of the Miyano BNA 42SY in November 2015 and the six Citizen machines a month later. This installation was prompted by the installation of two Citizen A20 sliding-head lathes some 18 months earlier — and the fact that Unicut has a policy of updating machines once they are five years old.

Managing director Jason Nicholson says: “Our turning shop is split into three areas: sliding-head lathes up to 20mm-diameter capacity; sliding-head lathes up to 32mm-diameter capacity; and larger fixed-head machines.

With over 13 machines of different ages and specifications in our 20mm section, we needed more standardisation and greater efficiency. The two A20 machines we installed were faster, easier to set, more efficient and more flexible than their predecessors. The benefits were so clear that we bit the bullet and ordered another six.”

While the new Citizen machines have improved cycle times by some 20%, Mr Nicholson says the benefits are not all about their speed. “The machines may have significantly reduced cycle times and set-up times and may offer greater flexibility, but the real benefit comes from having eight machines with the same specification, the same tooling configuration and the same CNC system.

"Previously, we had setters that could only program or set up certain CNC systems and tooling configurations, which disrupted our scheduling, as we had to work around machine and staff availability and skill levels. Now, we can interchange the jobs, the staff, the CNC programs and the tooling between all eight A20s. The benefits to our business are many-fold.”

With such a significant investment level, Unicut considered the impact on its own ‘bottom line’, as well as the benefits for its customers. Having eight identical Citizen A20 machines has reduced the tooling costs and tooling inventory, while the efficiency of the modern machine tools has reduced power consumption.

For a sub-contractor running machines 16hr a day to produce over 15 million parts per annum, machine down-time is also a critical factor — something that will inevitably decrease with the newly installed machines.

For Unicut, the benefits of the new acquisitions have been apparent both internally and externally. From a customer perspective, lead times will be even shorter, following the elimination of scheduling issues that previously
resulted from machine, staff or peripheral-equipment availability.

Mr Nicholson says the company’s philosophy runs a lot deeper than simply reducing lead times. “Over 75% of our order book is long-term work for OEMs. Our aim is to become a ‘contract manufacturer’ rather than just another sub-contractor.

"By aligning our machine tool acquisitions with customer projects, rather than selling ‘machine capacity’, we can offer customers additional benefits by getting immersed in a project, investing in the process and offering our engineering expertise.

"The OEM benefits from ‘cost out’ programmes that include comprehensive plans to continually reduce costs, inventory and other factors that may apply. Working like this provides a multitude of benefits to the customer while securing long-term contracts for Unicut.”

This method of manufacture means that the company has already dedicated three of its new Citizen A20s to long-term projects for two customers.

Mr Nicholson says: “Our sliding-head lathes typically run round the clock, producing parts in batches ranging from 50 to 50,000 parts; and while three of the new machines have already been committed to these OEM customers with long-term production needs, if one of them requires an urgent job, we will not disrupt their production run but will apply the appropriate tooling, program and staff to the next available machine to ensure we exceed their delivery expectations.”