Falmouth-based Feritech Global Ltd specialises in sub-sea engineering projects that take place in the harshest of environments; its products are used to survey the sea bed and provide geotechnical data for the oil and gas, military and surveying sectors.

Early in 2018, the company decided to bring as much of its machining as possible in-house, and it did this by creating Carrick Engineering — its own bespoke sub-contract operation.

The latter’s machining capacity grew significantly in the following 12 months, and it now has five machines from XYZ Machine Tools (www.xyzmachinetoools.com) — an SMX SLV turret mill, an SLX 555 ProTurn lathe, two turning centres (a TC320 LTY and a TC 400) and one vertical machining centre (a VMC 1510 HD).

Carrick Engineering’s production manager, Marc Goodchild, said: “As a start-up business, we needed reassurance from any machine tool supplier that they had a range of machines that would fit our needs, which includes heavy metal removal on some difficult-to-machine materials, such as duplex stainless steel, as well as large fabrications that need machining.

“XYZ’s VMC 1510 HD — with its box-slide-way construction, 12,000rev/min spindle and Siemens ShopMill control — allows us to do all of that.

“The SLX 555 lathe with its 3,000mm distance between centres gives us great turning flexibility, while the two turning centres provide large-capacity turning, with the advantage of the Y axis on the TC 320 LTY.”

Carrick Engineering has developed its own product range, comprising smaller parts for off-road vehicles, so there is added time pressure on its machine capacity, but this is being overcome by ‘smart thinking’ — using the 1,600 x 600mm table of the XYZ 1510 HD VMC to load multiple batches and using the bar feed capability of the turning centres.

The company has created a virtual 24/7 machining capability that can be managed easily by its four members of staff.

Mr Goodchild said: “The past 12 months have been intense. Along with the arrival of the new machines and increased demand from Feritech, we have opened up opportunities for sub-contract machining to other local businesses, as well as starting the process of developing our own product range for components for off-road vehicles.

“By working during the day on the Feritech jobs, which can be in exotic materials, we can then load the machines with our own light alloy parts and sub-contract work to run ‘lights out’ during the night, ensuring that we get maximum
production from all the machines.”