The Derbyshire-based sub-contractor All British Precision was formed in 2012 via a 50/50 merger of the sub-contract CNC machining company Medicione and Dennis Mowers — the mower-manufacturing engineering arm of Howardson Ltd, which placed regular work with Medicione.

The two stakeholders in the business, Richard Allen and Ian Howard, immediately began an investment programme
in machine tools and people that would change the face of the new business.

Mr Allen said: “I had some customers that stayed loyal and followed me from Medicione, but work for Dennis Mowers, accounted for a high percentage of our first year’s turnover of £400,000.

However, we recognised that — with investment and automation — we could develop quickly and improve efficiency all-round.”

The new company’s first investment was a Star ST38 12-axis sliding-head lathe — a particularly versatile machine that overcame many of the production issues encountered with mower components.

This machine was soon followed by two more Star sliding heads — an SR32J and an SR20J that, while focused on mower production, also provided free capacity to take on more sub-contract work. This in turn necessitated the need for a larger-capacity turn-milling capability.

Mr Allen said: “When we invest, it is to solve a problem and to create opportunities, and that was the case with turn-milling. When we bought our Mori Seiki NTX we knew there wasn’t much that this machine couldn’t do; it opened the door to many new business opportunities.

It was followed by another Star ST38, a Jones & Shipman cylindrical grinder and the first of three DMG Mori NLX 2500 turning centres — each with a sub-spindle and a Y axis.

The efficiency gains were incredible, with the NLX cutting cycle times dramatically; for one particular bearing housing, the machining time was cut from 13 to just 2.5min — and we eliminated the second operation.”

All British Precision’s investment in what it saw as the best machinery, along with ‘going the extra mile’ for customers, continued to pay dividends, and it presented the opportunity to undertake five-axis machining.

This resulted in the company buying a DMG Mori DMU MonoBloc 75 five-axis machining centre, along with a DMG Mori EcoMill 1100 V vertical machining centre — and two more NLX 2500 turning centres.

“This package of machine tools greatly improves our capability, while also enhancing efficiency by removing excess operations. An example of this is the large rollers fitted to the Dennis Mowers. These used to require nine operations to complete, along with lots of manual intervention; we now produce them in two operations — with much improved consistency,” said Mr Allen.

“While the investments we have made have been significant, the returns are more than justifying it. From our initial £400,000 turnover in 2012, we are now targeting £1.5 million by the end of 2018.

Moreover, our reliance on Dennis Mowers has reduced to around 40% of our turnover, with the balance made up from customers across a wide range of industries.”

Focus on tooling

The introduction of modern machine tool technology highlighted another issue for All British Precision — the gap in its knowledge of modern cutting tools and their optimum application.

“The jump from a maximum spindle speed of 7,000rev/min to having 20,000rev/min available meant that changes to machining strategies had to be made, otherwise the investment would be wasted.”

A conversation with Sheffield-based WNT (UK) Ltd (www.wnt.com) resulted in applications engineer Billy Poore looking at one particular job to see what gains could be made through the correct use of tooling. “What we saw when Mr Poore worked with us was a real ‘eye-opener’.

While we have a highly motivated team of people, they are diverse in their capabilities, with some having over 45 years’ experience working for the company — via Howardson Ltd — while others are relatively new to the business. We knew that we needed to develop our tooling knowledge in order to capitalise on our investment and up-skill our staff with regard to tooling.”

WNT (UK)’s business development manager, Adrian Fitts, put together a one-day programme that was structured to be relevant All British

Precision’s manufacturing staff, so Mr Allen shut the machine shop for a day and took every setter/operator to WNT’s Technical Centre in Sheffield.

“To justify switching off production for a day, there had to be a tangible benefit, but I recognised that if each team member brought one thing away from the day that might lead to a 1% improvement, it would be worth it. The result is that we’re seeing significant improvements in metal-removal rates through use of the new processes that were discussed on the day.

“It also had the effect of bringing our team closer together; we all found it very empowering.”

The day at WNT started in a classroom environment, going through cutting tools from the basics to the latest machining strategies, providing information that was pitched at a level that everyone could engage in, with questions being asked by novice and experienced machinists alike.

Adrian Fitts said: “With such a wide range of experience among the team at All British Precision, the challenge was to make sure everyone was engaged. The success of the classroom session was reflected by the fact that even the most die-hard machinist said they had learnt something.”

In the afternoon, the theory was put into practice in WNT’s technical centre, with cutters being run at their optimum to prove what can be achieved.

Following the WNT up-skilling day, All British Precision has made changes to how it operates, creating a new role of production controller, whose job is to standardise machining processes, reduce set-up times and cut manufacturing costs.