Plastic parts manufacturer invests in new XYZ bed mill

Manufacturing parts that are used in everything from bakeries and canning lines to subsea submersibles, betting shops and poodle parlours, Leeds-based Industrial Plastics Supplies produces a range of products that are used in some of the unlikeliest of places. To meet strong demand it has invested in a new XYZ RMX 4000 bed mill supplied by Devon-based XYZ Machine Tools to meet demand.

Since the company was established 40 years ago, it has produced plastic parts for a wide variety of customers. With a machine shop consisting of manual mills and lathes, a turning centre and routers, the company decided to take the plunge and invest in a new bed mill to bring previously outsourced work in-house. Mr Luty said: “The need to invest in a CNC milling machine became apparent after we looked at our costing and lead times when sending jobs out. Although we have two routers, there is a limitation on the thickness of material they can cut, which forced us to send out some of our work. Having done the sums, we decided to investigate purchasing a machine to do these larger jobs ourselves.”

Pictured left: can feeding system machined by Industrial Plastic Supplies

For some advice Mr Luty turned to Gary Haxby, who used to be a sub-contractor for Industrial Plastics Supplies but, after a period away from the world of manufacturing, was looking to get back into the industry. Mr Luty continued: “Because Gary knew the type of work we carried out we asked for his opinion on where we should focus our search for a milling machine and also if he would like to join our team.”

Having had several XYZ machines himself in the past, Mr Haxby had no hesitation in suggesting that XYZ Machine Tools would be a great place to start. He said: “We contacted XYZ and John Brimblecome, XYZ’s area salesman for the Northeast of England, came in to see us straight away. He took the time to look at the work we do and even gave us some estimations on how long some of the parts we wanted to produce would take to machine on the XYZ bed mills.”

This was followed up with a visit to the XYZ Huddersfield showroom where Mr Luty and Mr Haxby looked at the options available, and it also gave them the chance to catch up on the latest development changes on the ProtoTRAK RMX control fitted to the machines.

Compact footprint
Mr Luty said: “It was great to have a showroom local to us where we could have a good look at the machines we were interested in and help with the justification for the purchase. Although we initially thought it would be best to go for a RMX 5000 machine, which would give us more travel in the X axis, after visiting the showroom we decided to go for the RMX 4000 which was partly due to space in the workshop.

“It still provided X-axis travel of 1,600mm, but more importantly there was no reduction of Y-axis travel at 596mm across the two models. It was also good for us that the machines have the same spindle power of 7.5hp (5.75kW) delivering to the ISO 40 spindle through a two-speed head, which ensures the cutting capability is vastly superior to the routing machines we already have.”

Due to the nature of the parts produced at Industrial Plastic Supplies, once the machine was installed there became other obstacles to overcome. Mr Laxby continued: “There are times that we need to machine the complete thickness of the material without having a second operation. Holding the parts in a standard vice arrangement is not an option. This led us to creating our own vacuum generator to hold the parts and machine them in one operation.

“This added to the benefits the ProtoTRAK RMX has provided is all helping with production time reductions. The machine moving at 10m/min rapid has reduced our non-cutting times down tremendously and the defaults feature in the ProtoTRAK that allows me to set the machine up for the way I want to work is great. It fills in some of the prompts automatically in the conversational programming and helps minimise any mistakes as I enter data in.

“However, one of the best features on the ProtoTRAK control is the TRAKing feature (pictured right). The ability to wind the handles that in turn run the program is so confidence inspiring. I must admit I am still getting to grips with the DXF convertor that allows us to open electronic drawings on the control but, having seen it used at the showroom I know it is going to add another level of efficiency.”

Although the machine has only been installed for a matter of months, Mr Luty concluded: ”We are already seeing the benefits of investing in the XYZ RMX 4000. Our sub-contracting costs have dropped dramatically, and we are now getting the parts we required for our customers when we need them putting us in full control of our production schedule. Gary put us on the right track with looking at XYZ products and having seen the gains we have had with the RMX 4000 we need to look at other areas of our production to see what other XYZ machines can give us similar improvements.”