Mr Burnett says: “Our first task was to spread that risk and, falling back on our many years of experience in the oil and gas industry, we set about expanding the customer base.”
Much of the work that Nexus was undertaking at that time was less than 300mm in diameter and was for the sub-sea and offshore sector.
The global nature of the oil business had also seen the company consider opening a manufacturing facility in Malaysia; this brought it to the attention of Gabbro Precision, a group of companies providing solutions to the global upstream (exploration and production) oil and gas industry. Gabbro subsequently bought Nexus in 2009.
Mr Burnett and his team were tasked by the company’s new owners to take Nexus to the next level. This meant increasing the diameter capacity of the machine shop, and they were given a budget of £1.2 million. Feedback from existing customers indicated that there was demand for turned parts up to 1,500mm in diameter, so part of the money was earmarked for a vertical turning centre. Nexus looked at a number of suppliers and eventually short-listed two machines that had similar specifications. The order was subsequently won by Leatherhead-based Matchmaker CNC (www.matchmakermc.co.uk), which had quoted for a Tongtai TVL 16DCM machine with 1,600mm turning diameter and live-tooling capability.
Deciding factors
Mr Burnett says: “There were several things that swayed our decision in favour of the Tongtai machine. They included the facts that: we already use two vertical machining centres from Matchmaker CNC, which have performed well; the Tongtai machine was competitively priced for its specification; and we have always received exceptional service from Matchmaker. As it happens, the machine has operated without any real issues — and we have been working it hard over a double-shift pattern.”
The installation could have posed issues for Nexus, because — at 5m tall — the machine could barely fit between the factory’s roof supports. “The team from Matchmaker and Tongtai took it all in their stride, even when we made a miscalculation with the foundations; they simply went away for a couple of days while we put matters right, with one engineer travelling to and from Holland, without any fuss or extra cost.”
The Tongtai TVL 16DCM has a 1,350mm X axis, a 900mm Z axis, and a 45kW 250rev/min spindle motor. The machine also has the option of either a 12- or 16-position tool carousel. One particular feature that Mr Burnett highlights is the performance of the live-tooling facility, as milling operations that would previously have been undertaken on other machines are completed in a single set-up on the Tongtai.
“The milling capability is much better than we anticipated. Our initial intention was to use the live tooling just for drilling operations. However, we have been using it for much more than this and have been pleasantly surprised by the machine’s capabilities in this area.
“Furthermore, our initial concerns about stepping up to this type and size of machine were soon put to one side, as it is achieving all of the tolerances and repeatability targets that we had set for it. Our productivity and throughput are improving thanks to the capabilities of the Tongtai machine.”