A £1.8 million investment in a custom-built machining facility at the Walsall factory of Chamberlin & Hill Castings Ltd will see the installation of three high-specification Chiron/Scherer Feinbau automated mill-turn cells, helping the company become the UK’s only fully integrated supplier of grey-iron bearing housings for engine turbo-chargers
Supplied by Wellesbourne-based Engineering Technology Group (www.engtechgroup.com), the modular cells incorporate a Scherer Feinbau twin-spindle VDZ100 vertical lathe and a Chiron DZ15W twin-spindle twin-pallet machining centre; these operate in tandem via a robot and conveyor system.

Chamberlin & Hill chief executive Kevin Nolan said: “Our customer, Borg Warner, made it clear that if we did not invest in machining capacity, it would have to review our position as a supplier.

“In contrast, if we did make the investment, we were probably going to become the most significant supplier of turbocharger bearing housings in Europe.”

The first two cells were commissioned earlier this year, and the third is scheduled for installation in November. The capacity provided by these three cells has already been sold, bringing about additional revenue worth several million pounds per year for the Walsall-based company.