Jones Nuttall Ltd, a sub-contract manufacturer with its headquarters in Warrington and more than 60 employees, supplies some 30,000 different parts to over 250 customers every year. These include leading names such as London Underground, Network Rail, Linde Group, ScotRail, and Bombardier. The company also supplies many other manufacturers in rail, energy, petrochemical, and the oil and gas sectors — plus the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
The company’s machine shop offers a comprehensive capability; it includes 12 up-to-date CNC Hurco machining centres with bed sizes up to 3,200 x 2,100mm and eight CNC lathes from the likes of Mazak, Hurco, and Cincinnati. Production comprises from one-offs and small batches to runs of 1,000-plus from a diverse range of materials, for which Jones Nuttall uses tooling that includes solid-carbide and indexable tools for turning, milling, drilling, and threading.
However, when the company recently undertook an in-depth review of its supply chain partners, there followed a ‘forensic analysis’ of its cutting tool suppliers, as it was apparent they were offering an indifferent service — a situation that Jones Nuttall surmised was a result of staff turnover and extended product lead-times from overseas. This situation prompted the company to look for a UK supplier, and it subsequently selected Tamworth-based
Industrial Tooling Corporation Ltd with which to develop a close working relationship.
Taking up the story, Chris Fairbrother — ITC technical sales engineer — said: “We understood the issues faced by Jones Nuttall and to start with outlined ITC’s product ranges to the company; and to emphasise the quality and productivity of our tools, we first manufactured special form tools for hydraulic components used in the fluid-control industry.
“Jones Nuttall had suffered supply chain issues with its previous vendor of special tools, but we were able to demonstrate our expertise by providing technical support and manufacturing special tools within a very short turnround time. The tools performed exceptionally well and gave the company confidence in the ITC brand.”
Following this initial success, Jones Nuttall began introducing ITC solid-carbide end mills and drills with ‘impressive results’, as Mr Fairbrother confirmed: “From the outset, the performance of the ITC solid-carbide end mills reduced Jones Nuttall’s costs for these types of tool by more than 20%, while also achieving notable productivity gains. In many instances, this was achieved by using these tools with BIG Kaiser back-ends — also available from ITC — for improved rigidity, stability, and runout. Indeed, this combination achieved some exceptional results. Jones Nuttall has now installed an ITC vending machine that supplies a diverse range of ITC, Widia, BIG Kaiser, BASS and Kemmler products.”
Early trialsFollowing the success of the initial special form tools, ITC proved its value to Jones Nuttall and its machinists by trialling tools on clevis connector parts for the rail industry. Every month, the company machines over 1,000 clevis components from EN8 steel on its large-bed Hurco machining centre; and at these volumes and a cycle time of 30min per part the potential benefits could be significant.
Mr Fairbrother initially used a Widia VariMill Xtreme solid-carbide end mill with BIG Kaiser back-ends for machining an 18mm-wide x 45mm-deep slot. This was produced in four passes with an 11.25mm depth of cut at 175m/min cutting speed and 0.06mm feed per tooth. Producing two slots per part, the Widia VariMill Xtreme extended tool life from 40 parts to 120 parts while cutting cycle times from 30min to 12min.
After seeing such gains in productivity and tool life, ITC was invited to trial the Widia Varimill Xtreme on a clamping screw component. For this, the cycle time was cut from 5min to just 30sec. Naturally, Jones Nuttall was impressed and asked Mr Fairbrother to continue his trials on clevis parts.
With a discount and special offer on the Widia TopCut 4 indexable drilling line, one of these tools was successfully trialled on the long-standing clevis components and later fully implemented. Top Cut 4 indexable drills feature centring capabilities, inboard and outboard inserts, and can machine a variety of materials.
Moreover, they can undertake a variety of applications, including through and cross-hole, inclined entry and exit, 45deg corner, half cylindrical, concave, blind, and chain drilling. Jones Nuttall found that moving from carbide-tipped HSS drills to the Widia TopCut enabled it to achieve improved process reliability and productivity — and cost reductions — as drilling to a depth of 44mm with a 20mm-diameter Widia TopCut 4 reduced the cycle time from 1min to just 8sec.
The next step was ITC’s use of a Widia M200 indexable button end mill for facing the surfaces of the clevis part and undertaking most of the roughing operations. Jones Nuttall previously used a 100mm-diameter indexable tool with eight inserts from a competitor. Switching to a Widia M200 80mm-diameter button end mill with six double-sided inserts again saw a positive shift in performance.
This cutter was used to machine a 4mm step that was previously processed with four 1mm passes. ITC doubled the depth of cut to 2mm and simultaneously increased the feed rate, taking an additional 4min off the existing cycle time. The long-running clevis component has been one of many major successes that ITC has delivered to Jones Nuttall, as the company has now reduced the overall cycle time from 30 to 7min — a significant saving when producing 1,000 components a month.