Excetek helps MSP explore the benefits of EDM
With half a century’s experience of meeting the demands of the civil and defence aerospace industries, MSP has a track record of making intuitively successful business decisions. The company’s latest machine tool investment, an Excetek CNC wire EDM machine supplied by Warwick Machine Tools, follows this formula for success.
MSP operates from an impressive 40,000 ft2 manufacturing and assembly facility in Redditch. Here, business activities are split equally between wire products and sheet or strip work.
When it was established 50 years ago the first order fulfilled by the fledgling company was for an aerospace company that is now part of the Trelleborg group. As demand from aerospace customers grew so did the business.
In 2008, the company was purchased from the founding family by a Scottish equity company and managing director, Keith Gardner. He says: “Since purchasing the company we have invested in people, systems and manufacturing equipment. The head count has doubled from 26 to 54 and the business has grown from £1.8 million turnover a year and we are now at £4.3 million, even with the recent global recession in the middle.”
All the positive changes made by MSP resulted in interest from large businesses and in June 2014, Swedish multinational Indutrade AB acquired the company. Listed on the Stockhold Stock Exchange Indutrade owns nearly 200 companies operating in 26 countries, with 4,500 staff and a combined annual turnover of 1 billion Euro.
In parallel with the change of ownership, Keith Gardner and his management team were investigating new market sectors and a chance visit to the Offshore Engineering exhibition in Aberdeen resulted in some very positive meetings with potential new customers. As he explains: “There are many similarities between aerospace and oil and gas, the quantities are comparable and the consequences of getting it wrong are high. The materials tend to be exotic, such as Inconel or high grade stainless, because of the performance demands. An aircraft is in the sky at -60 oC and then landing, say in the Bahamas, at 40 oC, while drilling and exploration tools are going down an oil well at 250 oC in a high pressure, very corrosive sour gas environment.”
An initial development project with a Norwegian offshore oil and gas company resulted in a number of large production orders literally days after the company purchase went through. To meet this new customer’s demands would require additional EDM machining capacity, as Keith Gardner recalls: “We have two CNC wire EDM machines, but they are toolroom machines and are not designed to meet the production levels that would be required.”
The company was already aware of the Excetek wire EDM range available in the UK from Warwick Machine Tools because of another project. Managing director, Ian Holbeche, worked with MSP to establish a machine specification and supplied a quote for a 5-axis Excetek V850G with travels in X, Y and Z of 800 x 500 x 350 mm respectively.
Keith Gardner says: “I had to ask the new board for an unplanned £100,000 investment, and after explaining the reasoning behind the purchase I was very impressed by the lack of red tape and barriers to our progress.
“We knew which Excetek machine we needed, unfortunately it wasn’t immediately available. WMT provided us a machine on loan that was here within a week of asking, and that allowed us to begin production almost immediately. WMT kindly allowed us to continue to use it even after the V850G arrived to meet a spike in the volume. This may well result in the need for a second machine.”
Able to accept workpieces up to 1100 x 850 x 345 mm and weighing up to 1100 kg the additional capacity is one of the key benefits provided by the Excetek machine. One of the strategic gains MSP was keen on was the ability to work lights-out or to run unattended throughout the day. This is supported by the Auto Wire Threading system fitted to the Excetek machine. With a threading time of approximately 10 seconds it offers threading at the break point with almost 100 per cent reliability, threading is water jet assisted and can be carried out under water without draining the tank. Fitted with the SMS real-time text message function if the machine does run into a problem during the night, it will alert one of the staff so they can correct it almost immediately.
The 3 mm thick flat disc components produced on the Excetek machine act like leaf springs and will be fitted in a downhole tool to allow some components to be retracted. They are made to very tight tolerances out of Inconel X-750 in clamped stacks of 10 to 15 sheets of raw material, and the size of the table on the V850G allows multiple stacks to be loaded for efficiency gains. Disc diameter varies between 50 and 200 mm and since its installation the machine tool has produced over 500,000 components.
MSP is always looking to move into new areas to grow the business. Keith Gardner believes the Excetek machine will offer further opportunities going forward: “It is one of those processes that will open up different prospects for the company. It is great for prototype development work, good for tool manufacture, which can be a bottleneck for us as half of our business requires tools. Also, as existing customers become aware of the additional capability there is an opportunity for them to divert more business to MSP, thereby further consolidating their supply chain.”
He concludes: “As well as the additional capabilities of the Excetek machine we are extremely happy with the standard of machining achieved and the finished component results. In terms of the training and back-up received it has been excellent, which was crucial with the machine being new to us. The support we have had from Warwick Machine Tools has been excellent.”
Established in Taiwan in 2006, Excetek Technologies focuses solely on wire cut electro discharge machine tool technology. Employing 75 highly skilled staff the company builds around 200 EDM machines per year.