Kings Lynn-based Optima Metal Services (www.optima.co.uk) has a relatively straightforward business strategy, that is to build on its existing customer base by adding value to the services it supplies.

What started as a business selling nuts and bolts from a lock -up garage, turned in to one of the UK’s leading stockholders of stainless steel, steel and aluminium. It added to this by investing in flat sheet laser, bending, and deburring.

Now, it is expanding its services further with a £3 million plus investment in a dedicated facility to house the arrival of 3-D Tube Laser processing in the form of a LaserTube LT8 system from BLM Group (www.blmgroup.com).

Optima’s operations manager Andy Knowles said: “With the investment we had made on the flat bed laser side of the business we had every aspect of that process covered and adding value to the tube material that we held for customers offered great potential to grow the business further.

“The BLM LaserTube was the next logical step for us and as soon as it was commissioned in January it was in production with the expectation that it will generate 10% of the company’s turnover in its first year, a share that can only grow as we explain the significant benefits that laser cut tube can bring to their businesses.”

Among those benefits are the ability to supply a complete cut list to customers with the BLM Lasertube LT8.10 going way beyond customers’ expectations of what can be achieved.

The consistency and accuracy of the cut parts also assists in deskilling and expediting the final assembly of parts, as when they arrive at the customer, they are immediately ready to assemble or weld, without any further intervention.

Clyde Stratton, Optima’s laser tube manager, said: “Part of our work now is to explain to customers exactly what this machine can do. We achieve this in part by inviting customers on-site and producing sample parts while they stand in front of the LaserTube machine. This is a real eye opener for them.”

The BLM LaserTube LT8 has an impressive mechanical specification with the capability to cut tube up to 240mm diameter [virtually any tube profile can be processed] and up to 12.5m in length, with a maximum unload length of 8.5m with tube weight of up to 40kg/m.

It can also be specified with either a 3.5kW CO₂ or 3 or 4kW fiber laser source, delivered through a 3-D tilt cutting head. While the mechanical specification is sector leading, it was BLM’s use of software to enhance the manufacturing process that was key in helping Optima Stainless make the final investment decision.

Mr Stratton continued: “The BLM Artube software is excellent and extremely flexible, we particularly like the way a Solidworks model can be imported and how it can be separated into individual parts for production, on the fly, this saves lots of time and effort and, again, adds value for customers. It is not all about CAD systems though, we can just as easily create complex parts from pencil sketches.”

The versatility or Artube allows the user to quickly add, edit or remove features from an imported drawing, it will also offer suggestions for jointing techniques such as hook and slot or the new tooth style joins now being used.

Bending cuts are also optimised to ensure smooth transition from the cut part to finished assembly. In addition to Artube, the BLM LaserTube LT8 comes with a suite of Active Tools to aid manufacture, these include Active Piercing that delivers increased piercing speed, particularly when using inconsistent material, Active Scan compensates for deformed material to prevent positioning errors, Active Speed dynamically manages the cutting parameters to ensure consistent quality, while Active Focus controls manages the laser focal point to adapt to changes of material size and wall thickness.

Mr Knowles added: “The ethos of Optima Metal Services is to build on our existing base, which is exactly what we did with the flat bed laser side of the business and we are repeating that now with the BLM LaserTube machine.

“Our view also is that if we are going to invest, we will not cut corners and definitely won’t settle for second best, it simply has to be right for us and our customers.”

Prior to the purchase of the BLM LaserTube LT8 Optima Metal Services would sub-contract tube processing, the downside of this was that lead times could go out to as long as five weeks. Now, with the combination of its extensive stockholding of tube material and the LaserTube machine, these lead times can be cut to 2-3 days. A major advantage to its existing customers and a significant incentive for others to look at using its services.

Mr Knowles concluded: “Whichever way we look at this it has a positive impact, we are confident that we will quickly fill the capacity of this machine and a second machine will follow in fairly quick succession.”