Bakeware is big business, and meeting the demand for new products and designs has resulted in a significant investment in three vertical machining centres in the tool-room of one of the UK’s leading producers.
Based in Padiham, Lancashire, What More UK Ltd is well known for its Wham-branded plastic ‘housewares’, gardening and storage ranges.
Its portfolio includes a rapidly expanding ‘bakeware’ division with the highly popular Wham, WhamCook and the recently acquired PushPan ranges, with their individual popularity fuelled by the phenomenal success of TV’s
The Great British Bake Off.
At its custom-built factory, What More designs and manufactures a vast array of products, including cake and loaf tins, oven trays, purpose-designed products such as muffin and Yorkshire pudding trays — and many more.
There has also been an increasing demand for products that “reflect the ideas of celebrity chefs and baking experts”, and these necessitate bespoke designs and shapes. Moreover, the company exports to some 70 countries around the world.
In this fast-moving consumables market, What More needs to act quickly when responding to trends and new-product introductions, hence the recent installation in its tool-room of three Quaser VMCs.
Supplied by the Wellesbourne-based Engineering Technology Group (
www.engtechgroup.com), two of these machines are Quaser MV 234 three-axis VMCs — the largest Quaser machines of their type available in the UK.
They have a work envelope of 2,040 x 762 x 661mm, a 2,210 x 762mm table with a load capacity of 2,000kg, and a spindle-greasing system that allows 30,000hr of machining before the reservoir needs replenishing.
The ATC accommodates 48 BT40 tools (there is a 20-bar through-tool coolant facility), and both machines are equipped with Blum spindle and table probes. Control is via Heidenhain’s iTNC 530 CNC system.
Ideal complement
The smaller 184 VMC has a 1,200 x 600mm table, a 12,000rev/min spindle with the high-pressure coolant and spindle-greasing features, a 30-tool ATC, Renishaw laser-based spindle and table probes, a Lehman rotary table and a Heidenhain iTNC530 control. What More says this machine is an ideal complement to the larger ones for machining smaller press tools.
Press shop manager Kevin Allum has many years’ experience in this sector of the housewares industry, and it was on his recommendation that What More purchased the Quaser machines.
“I’m a die-hard Bridgeport man, and I installed the first tape-controlled CNC machine in a tool-room as long ago as 1982. However, I needed the bed size offered by theMV 234s; and once ETG had convinced me of the build quality and highlighted their many features, I had no hesitation in recommending that these were the machines to purchase.”
The MV 234’s working range comes into its own when manufacturing large progression tools that feature multiple identical impressions of trays or tins, which are pressed from 6-gauge pre-coated steel (the coating being the non-stick Teflon type). Material is supplied in sheet or coil format, depending on the press specification.
Mr Allum says: “It’s not untypical for a tool to take 600 man-hours to machine, so if we can achieve reductions in this time it not only cuts costs but also allows us to get product to the market quicker.
“While our own designs predominate under the Wham housewares brand, we also do third-party work. This can involve products with different shapes or signatures, so once we have the designs and specifications, we can reverse engineer to achieve manufacture in the most efficient way.
“Our designers use Solid Works and VISI for the CAM element, and both interface well with the machines’ Heidenhain controls.
“The tool-room is an integral part of our operations at What More, and the team is involved from the very outset — creating prototypes and proving-out tools — through to making the final production tooling.
“We like to be as self-sufficient as possible, because it ensures fast and positive responses — and on-site capability for tool maintenance and repair. The Quasers have become the bedrock of our machining operations; we have been impressed both by their performance and by the support from ETG.”