GF Agie Charmilles
(www.gfac.com) — the Coventry-based EDM, milling and laser machine tool specialist — has supplied Lotus F1 Team with six new five-axis machining centres featuring integrated automation.
The HPM 450U machines, which were installed at the Formula One team’s machine shop in Enstone, Oxfordshire, during August last year, formed the major part of an extensive refurbishment and technology upgrade programme designed to improve the operation’s manufacturing capabilities and capacity.
Now, some seven months down the line, machine shop manager Richard Smith says: “We made a strategic decision to increase our five-axis milling capabilities and fully embrace the concept of ‘one-hit’ machining. As a result, we are achieving dramatic productivity gains, improved machine utilisation, increased and more-consistent part accuracies — and reductions in the cost-per-part.”
Prior to the HPM 450U investment, Lotus F1 Team relied heavily on its three-axis machining centres to manufacture a range of high-precision, complex parts; and although the machines were performing adequately, issues regarding their productivity — in particular the amount of time spent on setting up jobs — were becoming a cause for concern. “We weren’t as efficient or effective as we could be or wanted to be,” says Mr Smith.
“We were spending too much time setting jobs on our three-axis machines — and designing and making bespoke fixtures to enable us to machine components on them. As well as having an impact on productivity, such ‘stop-start’ production was also affecting part accuracies owing to the amount of work-handling involved.
We knew that the nature and type of manufacturing we are involved in — low-volume high-precision complex-part production — were ideal for five-axis machining, and that adopting ‘one-hit’ manufacturing would enable us to raise our game.”
Mr Smith wanted the new machines to be identical in all respects, so as to standardise the new five-axis manufacturing operation. However, the standardisation went much further than selecting identical machines, but also similar tooling and work-holding, for example.
“We wanted maximum flexibility and total compatibility. If one of the new machines went down in the future — for whatever reason — we needed to be able to transfer the work quickly and seamlessly to one of the others. The standardisation approach also enabled our programmers and operators to be proficient in the use and operation of all the new machines in the shortest time possible.”