Having over 50 years of experience in engineering, Team Inc (UK) is a company which specialises in leak sealing services and solutions, With offices in Carlisle and throughout the UK, the company has grown into a global brand with a reputation that extends ‘across the pond’ to its headquarters in the USA. The company’s products and expertise come to the fore when water-tight, precise and durable sealing solutions are required, and are installed on oil rigs and offshore sites worldwide.

As a leading leak sealing business, its products and services are high in demand and the parts which it engineers are sold just as quickly as their highly skilled engineers can produce them. This was certainly true for Team’s high-pressure injection adapters, a product which is high in requirement both in the UK and globally. These parts, which are finish machined using reamers, are one of Team’s best-selling products meaning that the machine that produces them runs 24/7 in order to produce as many high-pressure injection adapters as the efficiency of the process allows.

The current reamers used to machine these high-pressure injection adapters would allow Team’s engineers to produce between 1,500-2,000 parts a year. Moreover, wear on the present reamer was more likely to cause damage to the parts that were being machined, leading to scrapped materials and waste.

Matt Darbyshire, a technical sales engineer at Sheffield-based Ceratizit UK & Ireland Ltd, has built a strong working relationship with Team over the past 16 years. His regular visits to the facility has enabled him to get an in depth understanding of Team’s machining needs, meaning that he was able to recommend tooling solutions to the engineers that he knew would make their processes more efficient and profitable. So, when Ceratizit launched its new Fullmax reamer, Mr Darbyshire recommended this to Team straight away for the production of the high-pressure injection adapters.

Working with the engineers who machine the components, Matt provided a day of testing and training on the new Fullmax reamer. Cutting data for the new reaming process was decided at 1,722rev/min with the feed at 1,722mm/min (1mm per revolution feed), the material was high tensile alloy steel (A193B7 and A320-L7). Ceratizit’s Fullmax reamer (part number 4048312000) made an immediate impact.

Whereas the old reamer would allow the production of between 1,500-2,000 adapters, in excess of 50sec per component being saved meant that the new reamer increased this number to between 8,000 and 10,000, equating to a five-fold increase in productivity. As well as machine efficiency being substantially increased, Ceratizit’s new Fullmax reamer also meant that fewer components were getting damaged during the process.

Furthermore, whereas there was no way for engineers working the machine to tell if the old reamers were worn, the new Fullmax reamers show when they need replacing, thus preventing any damage to the finished components. Even if the engineers were to use the reamers when they were worn, they still would not cause damage to the parts as the damage would be isolated to the reamer itself. A replacement tool can be exchanged in the machine tool and the parts reworked minimising rejections.

Reflecting on the impact switching to the new reamer’s has had for Team’s production of adapters, manufacturing manager for Team UK Chris Mitchell said: “Normally when you want to increase process efficiency as much as this, there is a huge expense either through providing more manpower or buying expensive equipment. However, the new reamer was actually cheaper than the one we were using previously and has provided a five-fold increase in the production of this adapter — which is outstanding. As well as this, it has virtually eradicated any waste in terms of scrapping parts from this process as the new reamers do not cause damage to the adapters.”

80% increase in productivity
Not only has the process stability increased in this way, but the nature of how the new reamers work also means that the risk for human error has been significantly reduced. Where during the old process the reamers would not maintain tolerance at a slower speed, the new reamers maintain tolerance while drilling more holes, meaning that there has been an incredible 80% increase in productivity.

Mr Darbyshire said: “Over the past 16 years visiting Team, I have become very familiar with the workshop and how the company’s machine processes work. So, when Ceratizit released this new reamer, I knew straight away that it could dramatically increase process stability and production efficiency for Team’s adapter manufacturing. As a technical sales engineer, I only recommend my customers products that I know will work well for them and their business. Providing the right tooling paired with technical expertise always comes second to ensuring that my customers will get a positive result from my recommendations.”

Vending machines
Team’s strong working relationship with Ceratizit, that is now in its second decade, means that Team has two Ceratizit vending machines on-site, which allows the company to update tools whenever they are needed. Furthermore, Team also knows that it always has technical advice and expertise on hand either from Mr Darbyshire or from other Ceratizit technical sales engineers or applications engineers.

This trust in Mr Darbyshire’s recommendations was apparent when speaking to Barry Kirkpatrick, the workshop supervisor at Teams Carlisle workshop. He said: “The technical support and advice that Matt provides is invaluable. Nothing can beat speaking to someone face to face to get their advice and expertise on the job. As well as regular visits and industry expertise, we know that we can pick up the telephone anytime for 24/7 technical support from Ceratizit. So, when Matt recommended this reamer to us, we knew that he only recommended it because he knew it would work well for the process.”

Having had such a positive result from this recommendation, Team are looking forward to future possibilities with Ceratizit, and hope to have Matt’s ongoing support for the foreseeable future.