Sub-contractor invests in its first three-axis machining centre

Pure Innovate Manufacturing, a leading project management and engineering solutions provider, and a division of Pure Innovate UK Ltd, recently purchased a new, high-performance machining centre from Leamington Spa-based Mills CNC, the exclusive distributor of DN Solutions’ and Zayer machine tools in the UK and Ireland.

A DN Solutions’ DNM 5700 three-axis vertical machining centre, equipped with an advanced Fanuc iPlus control and 15in touchscreen iHMI, was delivered and installed last month at the company’s brand new ‘Innovation’ facility in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, just a few days after PIM relocated its operations there, and is the first machine tool acquired by the company in its four-year history. The machine, equally adept at achieving fast and high-accuracy volumetric removal rates and/or undertaking super-fine finishing operations, is renowned for its versatility, agility and reliability.

In addition to its 18.5kW/12,000rev/min directly-coupled spindle and 30-position automatic tool changer (ATC), the machine, with its large worktable and fast rapids, was supplied with a through-spindle coolant capability and a Renishaw tool and workpiece probing system to increase machining flexibility and improve process efficiencies.

In-house machining resource
Although established in 2019, Pure Innovate UK only recently made the decision to develop an in-house machining resource. The company is the brainchild of managing director Carl Joy who is a time-served CNC engineer apprentice, with over 12 years’ business development and sales management experience gained at NCMT Ltd and DMG Mori UK Ltd. He had the vision, motivation and a clear plan to start his own company to provide highly customised and integrated manufacturing, project management and CNC machine technology solutions to clients.

The business model was initially based on securing new business for a select number of UK manufacturing companies with high-quality machining capabilities that he had developed good relationships with during his machine tool sales days.

Mr Joy reflected: “I started off working from home, developing contacts and building relationships. Things were going well — and then the Covid-19 pandemic struck only six months into the new business venture.”

The outbreak of the pandemic, and the subsequent lockdown restrictions, clearly had an impact on the company’s business operations and its growth ambitions. Apart from the Government’s short-lived VentilatorChallengeUK initiative, new business opportunities were, at that time, few and far between. Furthermore, the impact and effect of the pandemic resulted in an internal review of Pure Innovate’s business model and, to capitalise on the upturn, that started in the summer of 2020, the company developed and implemented a new business approach.

Mr Joy continued: “Covid-19 proved to be a watershed moment for the company. We needed to become more agile by providing services that were more sustainable and value-adding. As a consequence, we changed our business development focus to concentrate on critical industries and sectors, like medical, defence, space, scientific instrumentation, renewable energy and electric vehicles (EVs), that were more protected and less vulnerable, if that is possible, to global crises and catastrophes.”

With business ‘picking up’ Pure Innovate was increasingly being asked, by potential customers if it could manage new product developments including prototype and pre-production part production, as well as handling particular machining requirements. To help facilitate this, the company increased the scope and scale of its operations and expanded the range of services being offered to ‘target’ companies to include large-scale machining, high-quality sheet metal and fabrication, composite manufacturing, additive manufacturing (AM), assembly, and surface treatments.

This was achieved by bringing new production partners on board to enable Pure Innovate to offer a more comprehensive and diverse range of manufacturing capabilities and additional production capacity to end user customers. Over a short space of time, Pure Innovate’s supplier status had changed considerably. The company had repositioned itself to become a single-source project leader managing and coordinating a multi-discipline technology resource.

‘Open door’ policy
It was always Pure Innovate’s intention, as part of its business growth and development, to create an in-house innovation facility when the time was right. Mr Joy explained: “A key principle underpinning our innovation facility was ease of access for customers and was developed with this ‘open door’ policy in mind. The intention is to offer a dynamic engineering and manufacturing ‘hub-style’ environment, built on collaboration and trust, where we are able to meet up and work closely with customers’ design and project engineers to develop innovative engineering solutions and optimised manufacturing processes. The focus is on their R&D and prototyping projects and everything else, from initial CAD drawings to finished machined components, can be discussed, analysed and improved.”

This service is aimed primarily at customers operating in new, high-growth industries and sectors looking to exploit the potential of innovative technologies and develop new methods of manufacture, including science, space, EVs and autonomy, defence, sustainable energy.

Since being launched, literally only a few weeks ago, interest has been high — meetings have taken place and work has been commissioned. Mr Joy added: “Having our own dedicated machining resource at the Innovation facility improves our flexibility and responsiveness. We are able to produce prototypes (including any iterations) quickly and efficiently — and means we are not only able to deliver high-quality, fast turnaround machined prototypes etc, but also the processes developed and used to machine them.

“To increase the scope and scale of our innovation facility in the future, we are actively looking at investing in new technologies, like simultaneous five-axis machines, and developing our in-house capabilities further in areas such as additive manufacturing and composite machining. Nothing is off the table.”

Pure Innovate decided, owing to the nature of its prototyping work, to make its first machine tool investment a new three-axis vertical machining centre, and after looking carefully at the market opted for a DNM 5700 machining centre. As well as the machine’s technical specification and capabilities, the DNM 5700’s attractive price, a number of optional extras included, its immediate availability, and the after-sales service and support provided, including installation and training, were key determining factors.

Mr Joy concluded: “Pound for pound the DNM 5700 is the ideal first machine for us. It is fast, flexible and accurate and will enable us to machine high-precision prototypes and pre-production parts quickly, meeting tight delivery schedules where they exist, and give us complete control over the whole process.”

Since being installed in July, the DNM 5700 has already been put through its paces machining prototype tooling made from RAMAX — a hard, high-corrosion resistant grade of stainless steel. The next job lined up will be to machine a batch of high-precision aluminium components for the electronics sector — such is the versatility of the machine.