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DRN celebrates silver jubilee
28 Feb 2008
DRN Engineering is celebrating its 25th Anniversary and now turns over £1.9 million with 19 employees. In the past two years it has invested in six new machines, expanding its capacity to 15 CNC lathes, six with a mill/turn capability, and 5 vertical machining centres.
Sales Director Paul Newport says that the new mill/turn capacity has taken work from the milling section and enabled DRN to produce more work in one operation. At the same time it has allowed it to take on more milling work using capacity that would previously have been reserved for second operation work on turned parts. Most of the lathes are fitted with magazine bar loaders for overnight and unmanned running.
As Paul explains, “The company was started in 1983 by Don Newport and Gary Oakley was employed as Works Manager. Don had some good contacts from day one so the company’s six accuratools were soon busy making turned components. One of Don’s new customers wanted us to produce a bearing sleeve but we struggled to maintain tolerances, so in the third year our first Miyano CNC machine was purchased.
“The new machine was very successful at producing the bearing sleeve and with the new capability we soon began winning new work that we would not have quoted before.”
The great productivity of the new machine soon led to the purchase of further CNC lathes and greater diversity in the company’s capacity. This allows it to select the best type of machine for each component to give the shortest production time and the most competitive cost for the customer.
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