Tameside College in Greater Manchester has recently invested in six new high-performance Doosan machine tools from Mills CNC Ltd (www.millscnc.co.uk).

The machines — three DNM 400 II vertical machining centres, two Lynx 220 lathes and one Lynx 220LM lathe — were installed at the college’s new engineering facility last summer, ready for the start of the new academic year.

Before acquiring the Doosan machines, the college relied almost entirely on four old ‘entry-level’ machines that “had been good servants, but had seen better days,” according to Peter Redfern, the college’s curriculum leader for engineering.

“To promote the college’s engineering capabilities and capacity to key target audiences, the decision was made to go for new machines.”

As well as undertaking comprehensive on-line research on different machine-tool makes and models to supplement their own knowledge, college staff approached local engineering companies to help narrow down their choice.

“We did our homework, because we wanted to know what machines were being used by industry in production-led environments, and which machines delivered the best performance and reliability and represented the best value.

“We needed the reassurance that our students would be able to acquire relevant and transferable skills, using machines that were recognised by manufacturers.

“Overwhelmingly, the response from the companies approached favoured Doosan machines supplied by Mills CNC.”