The UK’s only event dedicated to contract manufacturing supply chains and out-sourced engineering services,
Subcon 2017 will this year again be run in parallel with the biennial
Advanced Manufacturing Show and
The Engineer Design & Innovation Show.
The three shows — being held at the NEC, near Birmingham, 6-8 June — have attracted some 500 exhibitors and will cover the complete manufacturing cycle from concept to finished part, bringing together design engineering, product development, in-house production and out-sourced supply chains.
Many of the exhibitors at
Subcon 2017 will be offering visitors a range of new services and capabilities following recent investments in machinery and technologies.
In fabrication, WEC Group has invested over £11 million in equipment and facilities over the last 18 months as the basis for its nation-wide expansion, while multi-metal stockholder Kloeckner has just added advanced bending and extra laser cutting capacity to its services.
Precision machining specialist PGT Ceewrite has also invested £11 million, to completely upgrade its Dorset facility and double its capacity for highly complex wire and spark erosion work.
The machining-services sector is strongly represented across the show, with new services coming on stream including a sub-contract CNC cylindrical grinding facility at Andover-based Perfect Bore; also new large-format heavy-duty machining centres and five-axis water-jet cutting machines at Gwent-based PRV Engineering.
Following significant investment in new technology, the Stockport-based specialist sub-contract engineering company Mini Gears has expanded its services so that precision machining accounts for 60% of its turnover; the company will be showing a comprehensive range of machined components that demonstrate its capabilities.
In plastics, a five-year multi-million-pound investment programme at Chess Plastics in Worcestershire is nearing completion, with the latest machine to be installed being another new Negri Bossi moulder.
Meanwhile, Ross-on-Wye based Meadex has just completed building a new ‘clean room’ for specialist plastic and rubber moulding; and Hepworth Group has launched a new RIM moulding division, adding an extra manufacturing option to its extensive range of fabrication services in Redditch.
In other processes, Carlton Die Castings has installed a twin-pallet Mazak machining centre in Paisley that allows the company to supply fully machined castings ready for assembly, while Oxfordshire-based materials coatings expert NikaWorks has developed new functional coatings for surgical-instrument applications.
Supporting
Subcon 2017, sourcing specialist Qimtek is sponsoring the VIP Buyer’s Programme and hosting a dedicated Qimtek UK Manufacturing Pavilion.
Co-located shows
Launched in 2013, the
Advanced Manufacturing Show covers every aspect of production technology, including machining centres, turning centres, lasers, press brakes, tooling and ancillaries.
Among the exhibiting machine tool and accessory suppliers will be XYZ Machine Tools (
www.xyzmachinetools.co.uk) on stand B49. The company will be showcasing the latest addition to its range — the UMC-5X simultaneous five-axis machining centre. Visitors will be able to inspect this machine in detail and discuss its high specification with XYZ engineers.
Taking centre stage on the Hurco Europe Ltd (
www.hurco.co.uk) stand (A40) will be a Hurco VMX42SRTi — a flexible high-capacity five-axis machining centre designed to offer greater capacity than a traditional trunnion machine.
The company’s SR series of five-axis machines features a swivel head with either an A- or C-type rotary table. The generous size of the table provides maximum versatility, as the extra table space can be used for secondary operations or three-axis work.
For a general sub-contract engineer, the appeal of this machine is that a greater variety of components can be handled.
1st Machine Tool Accessories (
www.1mta.com) on stand A41 will be showing a number of Kitagawa rotary-table options that can increase production versatility, reduce the number of separate machining operations and increase the complexity of parts that can be produced.
Among the units on show will be the latest TT150 tilting-type compound table, as well as examples from the heavy-duty GT range.
Metrology is particularly well represented at this year’s show. The global metrology brands exhibiting include Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence, Zeiss, Olympus, Alicona, Renishaw, Measurement Solutions and Aberlink, which will be demonstrating its Xtreme CNC CMM (this uses a non-Cartesian structure and linear motors to maintain accuracy at very high measurement speeds).
Also exhibiting will be Manchester Metrology (
www.manchester-metrology.co.uk) (an equipment hire, contract scanning and measurement company), along with the inspection, fixturing and calibration specialist Verus.
Together, these companies cover all aspects of scanning, measurement and quality systems — from contact and optical CMMs to laser scanners, 3-D surface measurement, microscopy and automated systems.
Gordon Kirk, Advanced Manufacturing Show event director, said: “As we move further and faster along the track towards the Internet of Things, Big Data and Industry 4.0, metrology is the vital interface between the physical and digital worlds. It is therefore appropriate that it should be so well represented in an event focused on the leading edge of manufacturing technology.”
The advanced manufacturing theme is emphasised in two conferences —
The Engineer Conference and
The Manufacturer Conference — which are free to attend for show visitors.
Presentations by leading authorities in their fields cover subjects ranging from Industry 4.0 to additive manufacturing, novel materials and robotics.
The Engineer Design and Innovation Show offers everything a design engineer needs to create innovative new products — from CAD and simulation software to prototyping and components.
Highlights include the latest composite printing technology. CREAT3D will be presenting 3-D printer technology that uses Nylon or carbon-fibre-reinforced Nylon as the base material, which can also incorporate Kevlar or glass fibre to create a composite structure that offers a higher strength-to-weight ratio than aluminium.
The three shows are complemented by 36 free-to-attend conference presentations in two separate conference streams. Further details of the three shows can be found at the following Web sites:
www.subconshow.co.ukwww.advancedmanufacturingshow.co.ukwww.theengineer-designinnovationshow.co.uk.