According to managing director Gareth McCracken, tooling from Walter GB in particular the renowned Tiger-tec cutting inserts has allowed outstanding reductions in cycle times by allowing higher feeds and speeds on its recently acquired CNC machine tools.

"Frankly if we had'nt embarked on our three-year £600,000 capital investment programme, which began in 2007, it is seriously doubtful whether the business would be flourishing as it is today", says Gareth McCracken. "The new machine installation programme, which is enhanced by a 20 per cent regional assistance grant by Scottish Enterprise, is being made to expand capacity and safeguard/create jobs, and is designed to reinforce our capability to cost-effectively produce a wide range of small/medium size workpieces required in relatively small batches, and often one-offs."

"The use of up-to-date vertical machining and milling centres, as well as our new CNC slant bed lathe, has made us ultra-competitive."

"Customers cover a wide range of industries, including oil, gas and petrochemical, as well as the renewable energy sector."

"With X, Y and Z axis travels of 1,600 mm by 800 mm by 800 mm and a table of 1,680 mm by 800 mm, a new Eagle 1600 VMC was the catalyst for the 21-employee Zeus team to reinvent its cycle times: the 40 BT spindle taper machines 10 kW/80-8,000 revs/min spindle speeds and rapid traverse rates of up to 18 metres/min highlighted all the shortcomings of existing tooling packages."

"On reflection, our tooling strategy was generally based on the use of tools and inserts that were adequate for manual-type machining, continues works manager Tom McDonald. But the new, high-class VMC needed tooling that was equally world-class, and Walters Tiger.tec immediately opened our eyes to what was possible."

"The Tiger.tec range of inserts enable up to 75-100 per cent more components to be produced per edge, due to their improved process reliability courtesy of a high resistance to flank wear, cratering and thermal cracking."

He adds: "Okay, we are paying perhaps 30/40 per cent more per insert than before, but the Walter product is producing incredible tool life savings and the fact that it can run at much higher feeds and speeds is generating additional cost benefits in terms of reduced cycle times and therefore reduced overall floor-to-floor times."

Established by Gareth McGrackens grandfather in 1966, Zeus Engineering is part of a tripartite engineering group (Argon Engineering and Gillrick Metalwork) based in Lanarkshire and, as Gareth McCracken points out: "Ever since we started to support the machining needs of the earthmoving equipment manufacturer now named Terex we have built a reputation on meeting customer needs, consistently and cost-effectively."

"The whole operation is geared towards this, and the policy is not just evidenced by our capital investment programme but it is also demonstrated by our customer partnerships. These include close collaboration over new product development with clients designers and production engineers."

"Our production manager John Grant also works closely with customers over production control procedures to effectively manage variable batch work, machining anything from 50/100-off to the occasional batch of 1,000 always in line with our ISO 9001:2000 accreditation and where appropriate completely transparent to the customer."

"Everyone here knows what the customer expectations are in terms of service (daily deliveries), component quality and cost and, when necessary, round-the-clock machining to meet particular demands", he concludes.