Longbridge-based
DaceCrown Ltd has been one of the leading suppliers of precision components to the bottling and packaging industry for over 25 years, and plans are now afoot to take the company to new heights. Tom White, whose background is in applications engineering and technical sales, bought DaceCrown in 2023 with business partner and current operations director Jake Harley-Arliss.
Mr White said: “Over the years, the company has built a strong reputation among global brewing, beverage and pharmaceutical brands for tackling the toughest packaging and handling challenges.” In less than a year the new owners took DaceCrown from a fully manual workshop to having three Haas machine tools — a VF-9 large capacity vertical machining centre, a VF-2 vertical machining centre and an ST10 high-performance turning centre.
Mr White continued: “Previously the company did most of its production work using manual lathes. It was highly skilled but the talent pool for that kind of work is only getting smaller. Our aim was to transition to more modern methods of production to future-proof the business while also growing our customer base. This change in approach very quickly opened the door to winning more jobs for high-value components with complex machining requirements, such as sharper tips, better corner radii and finer screw threads — work that simply cannot be done at scale on manual machines.”
However, with business growing, the DaceCrown team soon realised the tooling on their Haas machines was still holding them back from reaching their true potential. Mr White explained: “Traditionally, the company made its own tooling in-house as it kept costs down, but it didn’t take into account the time and resource to do so.”
To help bring the company’s tooling in line with their ambitions for growth, DaceCrown turned to
MSC Industrial Supply Co and its application engineers visited DaceCrown over several weeks to gain first-hand experience of the tooling challenges the manufacturer faced.
The trials coincided with the testing stage of MSC’s newly-launched MSC EDGE range of multi-purpose solid-carbide holemaking and milling tools. In turn, DaceCrown acted as a vital field test site providing critical performance data to MSC throughout a trial period. A variety of materials and toolpaths were tested and following its completion, DaceCrown were supplied with a set of 4, 8 and 12mm MSC EDGE end mills which have enabled the team to handle a wide range of materials and applications without having to regularly change tooling.
Instant game-changerMr White added: “It was an instant game-changer. We went from a 1min 50sec cycle time down to 10sec. It was a case of plug and play — put the tool in, set the speeds and feeds and press go. We have used them on stainless steel, mild steel, structural steel, and aluminium. We can do pocket milling, milling into holes that were drilled too small, and we have also done some profiling work.
“The best thing is, we can keep them in the tool magazine which reduces our set up times, and even though we are running at higher speeds and feeds, we have found the MSC EDGE tooling to be very durable, so we don’t have to replace them as often as we used to with our previous supplier. This means we can not only complete jobs faster and turnaround work for our customers more quickly, but also keep our own tooling costs down.”
Having unlocked new levels of productivity, the future is looking increasingly bright for DaceCrown. Mr White said: “We have always strived to deliver the best possible quality for our customers, and the parts we supply touch the end product last, so if we make a mistake then the whole line can do go down. Quality is everything for us and our customers, therefore if it is not right, it is not leaving our facility.”
He concluded: “We are always looking at ways we can push the boundaries of what is possible. We don’t want to be just another supplier, we want to be a partner that adds value, which is what MSC has become for us.”
For more information on MSC Edge, please visit the website
here.