Glasgow-based Auld Valves has a place in history as the first company to patent the full-bore regulator valve.

Founded in 1833 (www.auldvalves.com), it supplies its reducing, control and safety valves to customers around the world in various industry sectors, including oil and gas, nuclear and shipbuilding; it also continues to offer a full foundry service, producing castings in steel, stainless steel, bronze, phosphor bronze, aluminium bronze and cast iron.

The on-site foundry allows the company to offer short lead times of four to six weeks on its made-to-order valves.

Machining at Auld Valves has traditionally been either sub-contracted or carried out on a range of manual lathes and radial-arm drills, but with business growing on the back of recent orders for valves for the UK’s two new aircraft carriers — HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales — along with planned work on the new BAE Systems Type 26 Frigates for the Royal Navy (and other navies around the world,) a decision was made to bring some of the work in-house.

Technical engineer Tom McLarnon said: “Our plan was to just start with a single XYZ SLX 425 ProTurn lathe, but a feasibility study proved that going for double the capacity was the correct move, as it would give us added
machining flexibility.

"We can now manufacture what we want, when we want it, rather than being dictated to by minimum order quantities imposed by sub-contractors.”

The arrival of these machines brought an opportunity for two young operators to step over from manual to CNC, and Auld Valves also purchased an off-line programming system from Burlescombe-based XYZ Machine Tools (www.xyzmachinetools.com) in anticipation of machining some of its more complex components.

In fact, the ease of use of the ProtoTrak control has seen the two operators programming most jobs at the machine.

Mr McLarnon said: “We did use the off-line system initially, and we have also imported DXF files into the control, but the ProtoTrak control is so easy that it’s just as quick to develop programs while stood next to the machine. This ease-of-use has made it much more practical to manufacture one-offs and small batches quickly.

"The set-up and cycle time savings we are seeing are in the order of 60% over highly skilled operators using manual machines; and as a lot of our valves are made to order, we can keep stock to a minimum while still being able to meet short lead times.”