The fortunes of Newbury-based Engineering Solutions & Supply Ltd (ESS) have improved dramatically since managing director Nick Wright took over some four years ago. The sub-contract manufacturing company has moved to new premises and has acquired a number of new machine tools to deal with larger-batch work.

Mr Wright says: “I had a six-year plan when I took over, but the company has advanced at such a rapid pace that those goals have been exceeded in a much shorter time-frame. This year, we moved from our 4,500 sq ft leasehold facility to a new 7000 sq ft freehold site; and within a month of moving, we took delivery of a new turning centre and machining centre.”

ESS has always been a prototype and small-batch sub-contractor to the food, security, packaging and agriculture industries, with an emphasis on complex parts and extremely short lead times. However, the issue for the company was a capacity shortage that prevented it from competing for larger-batch work; the decision was made to invest in a DMC DL21LMA CNC lathe and a DMC DM50V machining centre from Nuneaton-based Leader CNC Technologies Ltd (www.leadercnc.co.uk).

The CNC machining section at ESS traditionally had a one man, one machine policy. However, the rapid set-ups, ease of use and
unmanned-running capabilities of the DMC machines have allowed the company to allocate staff to other tasks; five machines are now being run by three operators. Furthermore, the capabilities of the new machines have eradicated many secondary operations and the associated set-up procedures — and cut cycle times.

Workshop manager Neil Hutt said: “We looked at machines from a number of suppliers, but it was often a matter of compromising between speed, capability, build quality and rigidity. The DMC range offered the best combination of all these attributes — and was within our budget. The DL21LMA turning centre with bar-feeder has given us the ability to run larger batches, which we couldn’t previously quote for competitively.

“The DM50 really stood out from other machines in the same price bracket. With linear guides, a tool change time of 1.3sec, rapids of 36m/min, a BT40 spindle with through coolant and a rotary-table fourth axis, we have improved our capability for complex work and our capacity for larger-batch production.”