Timely investments meet increase in demand

Mills Burcas P5100LM on the shopfloor at Burcas

An increase in demand for its high-quality machining services from existing customers, coupled with a growing number of orders from new customers, recently prompted Birmingham-based Burcas Ltd to invest in two new high-performance machines supplied by Leamington Spa-based Mills CNC, the exclusive distributor of DN Solutions’ and Zayer machine tools in the UK and Ireland.

The new machines, both DN Solutions’ models, comprise a large capacity, heavy duty 21in chuck Puma 5100LMB long bed, box guideway lathe equipped with driven tooling and a 10in chuck SMX 2600S multi-tasking mill-turn machine equipped with two opposing spindles and a B-axis milling head. Both machines also feature the latest advanced Fanuc ‘iPlus’ control and 15in touchscreen iHMIs, and were ordered at the start of the year by the privately-owned precision machining sub-contract specialist.

The Puma 5100LMB at Burcas is a large-capacity (long-bed) box guideway lathe with a 650mm maximum turning diameter and a 2,002mm maximum turning length

The Puma 5100LMB was installed at Burcas’ 32,000ft² facility in April and the SMX 2600S in June and they represent the second and third machines Burcas has acquired from Mills CNC — the first being a large, powerful Mynx 9500/50 vertical machining centre that was installed in November 2020, during the height of the pandemic, to machine high-value, high-precision tooling, prototypes and components primarily for customers in the nuclear sector.

Mike Burrows, Burcas’ owner and managing director, said: “The Mynx 9500/50 has been a great investment and has more than proved its worth over the last few years. Day in day out the machine delivers the part accuracies and the fast processing speeds we require. In fact, it has undoubtedly helped us strengthen our supply chain position within the nuclear sector and, over the last three years, has been more than instrumental in helping us to secure a number of new machining contracts within the sector too.”

The nuclear industry remains important to Burcas, and the company is currently working towards ‘Fit for Nuclear’ accreditation to consolidate and strengthen its position in the sector further. The company’s positive experience with its Mynx machine, and with Mills CNC in general, was a prime motivator in the company investing in its new Puma 5100LMB and SMX 2600S machines. The decision to invest in both machines was made at the end of 2022, when after a couple of years of relatively static growth, during and immediately following the Covid-19 pandemic, the business landscape improved.

Surge in demand
Mr Burrows added: “It was around September 2022 when inquiries from customers in the defence, aerospace, oil and gas, rail and nuclear sectors really took off. This was clearly great news for us, but in order to meet such a surge in demand, we needed to evaluate our existing in-house machining capacity and capabilities, and stress-test our processes and systems, to make sure we could cope. The new business we had acquired was all high precision in nature and involved the machining of different materials — anything from aluminium and nickel-chrome-molybdenum steel, through to stainless steels, titanium and Hastelloy.

“With such diversity, we needed versatile machines capable of both performing heavy duty roughing operations with an emphasis on fast, accurate and high material removal rates, right through to undertaking super-fine finishing operations — and everything in between. To improve our productivity and process efficiencies, we decided that multi-axis machines would be the necessary direction of travel.”

Armed with a clear understanding of its new machine tool requirements, Burcas approached the market in early 2023 with Mills CNC being one of its first ports of call.

Mike Burrows continued: “We like Mills’ business approach and have built a good relationship with the company in a relatively short space of time. The depth and breadth of the DN Solution’s range of machines is extensive and Mills’ progressive stocking policy means that machine availability is good. These strengths, combined with Mills’ after-sales and service support, put the company in a strong and favourable position.”

The SMX 2600S at Burcas is a high-performance, multi-tasking mill-turn machine equipped with two (opposing) 30kW/4,000rev/min spindles which, with its 12,000 rev/min B-axis milling spindle, can perform a range of machining functions, including turning, milling, and synchronised cutting in a single set up

Subsequent discussions between Burcas and Mills ultimately resulted in a decision to purchase the two machines at the same time. The Puma 5100LMB is a large-capacity, long-bed box guideway lathe with a 650mm maximum turning diameter and a 2,002mm maximum turning length. It is equipped with a powerful, high-torque 45kW 1,500rev/min 2,957Nm spindle, driven tooling 4,000rev/min driven tooling and a 12-station turret. The particular machine supplied to Burcas features a dead-centre tailstock and a 20-bar through-spindle-coolant capability. Since being installed the Puma 5100LMB has been put through its paces machining a range of prototypes and parts for the company’s defence, rail and oil and gas customers.

In-house turning capabilities
Mr Burrows explained: “The Puma 5100LMB is a great acquisition that has considerably strengthened our in-house turning capabilities as its driven tooling capability means that parts do not need to be transferred to a machining centre and can be completed in one set up.”

Meanwhile, the SMX 2600S is a high-performance, multi-tasking mill-turn machine equipped with two opposing 30kW 4,000rev/min spindles which, with its 12,000rev/min B-axis milling spindle, can perform a range of machining functions (including turning, milling and synchronised cutting in a single set up. The machine features a 40-position automatic tool changer and was supplied to Burcas with linear scales (X and Y axis) for improved accuracy and a SLU-X4 steady rest for machining longer parts.

Mr Burrows added: “The SMX 2600S has only recently been installed but is already making a difference machining high-precision, complex parts to completion, in one set up, for our newly-acquired aerospace and defence machining contracts. The machine’s mill-turn capabilities also means that we have been able to re-imagine and develop new, more-efficient machining processes for existing parts – freeing up time and production capacity on our other lathes and machining centres.”

Whether its machining anti-tilt bars for Burcas’ rail customers, down-hole components for its oil and gas customers, wobble-box components for its aerospace customers or glove-box components for the nuclear industry, the new DN Solutions’ machines are proving their worth delivering significant productivity and process efficiency gains to a company whose machining services are very much in demand.