With a history dating back to 1920, Muffett Gears is now being driven forward by the third generation of the family, which is investing in the company’s manufacturing capabilities and capacity, as well as its people; and while the name Muffett Gears may suggest a narrow band of operation, the business offers what it describes as an ‘end-to-end solution’ involving many non-gear-related services, such as assembly and electro-mechanical integration, as well as a full range of machining services.

This versatility allows the Tunbridge Wells-based company to serve customers in a range of industry sectors, including medical, oil and gas, aerospace, hydraulics and flow control.

As the business has grown, it has also developed export markets, which now play a significant part in its plans — especially the burgeoning Chinese economy.

Indeed, increased business from China recently focused attention on achieving greater levels of productivity and efficiency, which led to the purchase of a Robbi Omicron CNC3206 CNC universal grinding machine from another Kent company — Erith-based RK International Machine Tools Ltd (www.rk-int.com).

Mark Jagelman, Muffett Gears’ operations manager, said: “Business is very buoyant at the moment, with turnover increasing by 35% in the past 12 months alone.

“Our largest industry area is the medical sector, where we can add value through manufacturing component parts and then integrating them into electro-mechanical assemblies.

“There is also significant demand for individual components, with one of our growth areas being the export of splined shafts for assembly in China.

“Key to our ability to meet this growing demand is manufacturing flexibility, particularly as many of our contracts are based on forecast demand from customers, which means we have to react quickly to changing schedules.

“Most manufacturers are the subject of ‘cost down’ pressures from customers, and we are no different. However, our costs — whether relating to labour, materials or energy — are increasing.

“This means that we have to drive efficiencies, hence our investment in the new Robbi grinder.”

Single operation

The issue that Muffett Gears had with the splined shafts that it supplies to both the UK and China was that they had required two operations to grind three journals, one of which has a 1:500 inverse taper.

To generate the productivity required to meet increased order volumes meant that the two previous operations had to be combined into a single one.

Muffett Gears invited tenders from several companies, but it was RK International that was successful, thanks to the ability to configure the wheel-head of the Robbi machine to suit Muffett Gears’ requirements.

“RK International director Dick Aldrich said: “The Robbi machine’s wheel-head can accommodate a variety of set-ups.

“In this case, it was 180deg opposed external wheels with independent electro-spindle motors fitted with motor inverters and a water/air chiller.

“Other variants include a third external wheel or an internal grinding spindle.

“Other features of the Robbi Omicron CNC3206 CNC installed at Muffett Gears are the aspirator and filter for emulsifying ‘oil and fog’, along with gap control technology — and the addition of a vibration sensor from Balance Systems on both wheels.

“Accuracy is maintained by the use of incremental linear encoders for table movement and a Hirth coupling on the wheel-head. The machine is also one of the first from Robbi to feature a 16in touch-screen control panel on the Siemens 840D sl CNC system.”

While already a customer of RK International, Mr Jagelman and the team at Muffett Gears needed the confidence that the machine was capable of achieving the required accuracy and throughput and that service and support were available, if required.

Visits to the Robbi factory in Italy for detailed assessment of the machine, followed by visits to existing Robbi customers in the UK and then a series of demanding machine acceptance trials, allayed any doubts.

Mr Jagelman said: “We were placing a lot of faith in the new machine, so we needed reassurances on performance and support; the combination of visits and trials gave us that.

“With the order placed, all we had to do was await delivery, which happened on the day it was promised.

“Indeed, the machine was installed and commissioned the same day; and following training on the Siemens control, we had production parts coming off the machine within a matter of days of it arriving in early July.

“Moreover, eliminating the second grinding operation from the parts destined for China has significantly cut overall production times, as required.

“The Robbi Omicron CNC3206 CNC is proving to be a very cost-effective solution — and one that has given us everything we needed.”