DaRo Products’ success story started with a management buy-out in 2000.

Within the first year, the company was turning over £600,000 fabricating sheet-metal components and asemblies.

Since then, it has maintained a strong core of sub-contract customers and made parts for many different products — including commercial wood chippers.

In 2008, the company had the opportunity to acquire the business of one of its customers — a manufacturer of ultra-violet water-treatment systems — and DaRo UV Systems now has a £1 million turnover.

DaRo Products has since acquired a second company, which designs and manufactures Ministry of Justice-approved lighting (it also supplies fibre-optic enclosures, racks, trays and patch panels to leading communications companies).

DaRo Products’ managing director, Damon Goodyear, says: “We built on our sheet-metal and fabrication skills and now have our own range of products, thereby assuring the future of our manufacturing facility.

"Furthermore, we have expanded the processes we carry out in-house; in addition to CNC punching, forming and welding, they now include vacuum forming, powder coating and assembly.”

At the heart of its manufacturing facility are two CNC punch presses: a Rainer and a Trumpf TruPunch 3000. These are both programmed with Lantek Expert, which was first installed in 2005.

Since the software was installed, the CNC punch presses have changed four times, and each time it has been easy to tailor the system to program the replacement machine.

“Before we installed Lantek Expert, we had a dedicated piece of software for our first Rainer machine.

“The flexibility to program any machine with the Lantek Expert was very important in our decision to purchase this software.”

Many of the parts produced by DaRo have to be carefully deburred to remove any sharp edges.

To achieve this, the company uses a de-burring tool on the Trumpf machine; this ‘coins’ a small chamfer on the cut edge during the punching cycle.

Mr Goodyear says: “We carry out this operation on all parts from our Trumpf machine, thereby allowing them to go straight to the customer or to assembly without any secondary operation.

“We worked closely with Lantek (www.lanteksms.com) to develop the process and incorporate it into the CNC programs generated by Lantek Expert.

The tool will accurately follow the profile of the job, no matter how complex it is. We can also regenerate existing programs with one click to incorporate deburring into these as well.”

Previously, the company deburred parts by hand, so the on-machine method has saved a process, freeing up an operator to carry out other tasks.

As well as deburring, DaRo uses the punch machines to carry out forming operations such as knock-outs.

The company currently sub-contracts its laser cutting, but if the volume of this work justifies investing in its own laser, it will be able to use Lantek Expert to program this as well.

Most parts come as a DXF file, which goes straight into the Lantek software.

For reverse engineering and quality control, the company also has a Virtek LaserQC, which can scan parts in 2-D and create a DXF file ready for CNC punching.

This equipment can also compare a manufactured part with its drawing.

Mr Goodyear says: “With Lantek Expert, we can produce a punching program in a few minutes.

“Our sub-contract business and the continuous development of our own products makes the automated programming in Lantek Expert important for keeping up with the pace of work.

“Nests are organised to create a kit of parts, as we mainly manufacture complete products or assemblies.

“Moreover, Lantek’s software maintenance contract keeps us up to date with the latest technology.

“Previously, it was very easy to get left behind; we can now be sure that our manufacturing is operating at peak efficiency.”