Southern Manufacturing – don’t miss it

Southern Manufacturing 2012 will almost certainly be another record-breaker. Last year’s show pulled in a record 6,500 visitors. This year, with even more exhibitors and a larger show area, that number is likely to be exceeded once more.

On the subcontracting side, the show will welcome a large number of well-known engineering firms from across the UK, among them Inro Turned Parts, Brighton Sheet Metal, Broxton, DJJ Precision Engineering, Aerotech Precision Manufacturing, ICEE Managed Services and many others. Fife Fabrications will return in 2012, as well Canterbury-based Inca Geometric, who will be hoping to repeat the success of their debut appearance last year that resulted in over £40k of new business generated.

New companies appearing this year include two of the biggest names from the North-East: Serious Engineering and the Responsive Engineering Group. Other notable new exhibitors include steel stockholders, John Parker & Sons, fastener manufacturer, Titgemeyer, and Europe’s largest supplier of copper alloy products, Aurubis plc.

The show’s extensive free technical seminar programme also returns bigger and better in 2012, featuring speakers from UKTI, BAE Systems, EDF Energy, NAMRC, Farnborough Aerospace Consortium, University of Sheffield and The Composite Systems Innovation Centre, amongst others.

Entry to Southern Manufacturing 2012 is completely free to business visitors, and FIVE Farnborough offers plentiful free car parking and superb access by road and public transport.

To register online for tickets simply visit www.industrysouth.co.uk or call 01784 880 890.

Visitors can follow all the latest news from the show at blog.industrysouth.co.uk

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As a subcontractor, Responsive Engineering (Stand P6) is organised into four divisions, each operates autonomously which gives customers focused attention based on dedicated specialist skills. However, if a customer needs to draw on the resources of more than one division, there is still only one point of entry; the initial division in effect subcontracts the work internally. According to the company the customer gets the best of both worlds, specialist skills coupled with access to multi-disciplines.

The four divisions cover machining, welding & fabrication, cutting and pressing & assembly. The machining division has recently benefited from a £2 million investment which included five-axis machining with a 3 m bed. The welding division has recently moved into new premises and has considerable experience with welding high-hardness alloys, complex and high integrity fabrications.

Both laser cutting and water jet cutting are available. The division’s claim to fame is that it installed the first water jet machine in the UK, so there is a wealth of accumulated experience. Both processes can handle sheet material up to 4 m long.

The press division specialises in low-volume, high quality products and the maximum press capacity is 250 tonne.

Specialist fabricator ICEE (Stand K 30) has recently replaced its C0₂ laser with a Bystronic BySprint Fibre Laser, complement its existing water jet cutting services and allowing it to handle an even wider variety of projects. Using a combination of water jet cutting and fibre laser cutting ICEE can now handle virtually any material up to 230 mm thick.

The Southern Manufacturing exhibitor offers a wide range of services from its Hampshire base, from simply cutting blanks right up to full design and manufacture of bespoke enclosures. To this end, CNC press brakes, guillotines and welding are also available in-house.

With water jet cutting, the lack of heat is a major benefit as it eliminates any heat affected zone. The maximum thickness than be cut is 230 mm; this allows material to be stacked and cut to reduce cost per part. Reflection can be a problem when laser cutting polished material, not so with water jet cutting. The range of materials that can be cut is impressive; all metals, plastics including composites, stone & marble, armour plate and bullet-proof glass. Even cardboard and foam can be processed. Plate and sheets up to 4,000 by 2,000 mm can be handled

Fibre laser cutting is faster than CO₂ and can process a wider range of materials. Installed capacity is up to 12 mm in mild steel, 8 mm in aluminium and 6 mm in stainless steel. To complete the picture, a range of finishing processes including plating and powder coating can be specified.

At the show Byrne-Mech (Stand M48) will launch the latest addition to its plant, an Amada laser with a cutting capacity of 22 mm in steel. This has greatly enhanced its capabilities as a subcontract sheet metal fabricator.

Prior to this move it specialised in the fabrication of aluminium, steel and stainless steel up to 6 mm. New doors will be opened following this investment. The company offers a design and build service that encompasses electro-mechanical assemblies, cable and harness manufacture. Alternatively, it can accept CAD files from any 3D CAD packages.

All painted parts are finished in the in-house powder painting plant. Other finishes that can be provided include electro-plating, clear chem, linishing, passivation and stainless steel polishing.

Working with the aerospace industry, means that the company already has in place all the appropriate systems for quality control and full traceability. Other sectors served take in automotive, medical, utilities and telecoms.

Anyone would be forgiven for thinking that there is a contradiction in the headline, but that’s exactly what you get with MAN or the Midlands Assembly Network. It is a consortium of 10 world class subcontractors with a combined turnover in excess of £60 million and a workforce around 650.

Together they offer technical expertise in mechanical and electrical and electronic engineering as well as PCBs, plastics, aluminium casting and photo-etched components. A central point of contact can ‘pick and mix’ from the available resources to establish the optimum solution to meet the contract specification at the lowest price.

Founded on its ability to offer a single source solution MAN has enjoyed a record year attracting orders of more than £10m from numerous domestic and international customers in the automotive, aero, construction, electronics, medical and renewables fields.

As it name implies, Fife Fabrications (Stand L78) was once primarily a subcontractor that specialised in fabricated parts. Not any more. Following extensive investment, it has transformed itself in a company that provides a single source for major projects that call on many aspects of manufacturing technology.

This underlined by the latest £400,000 investment last year in a CNC turning centre and a machining centre to add to already extensive metal cutting facilities. Other production resources include CNC punches, laser cutting, welding and fabrication, various finishing processes and assembly.

This is backed up by a full design service to cover concept-to-delivery projects. This level of comprehensive service already finds favour in such diverse industries as oil & gas, medical, nuclear and renewable energy sources.

A major aspect of the company’s plans for strategic development is its close involvement with local schools to promote the concept of engineering and manufacturing as a worthy career path. It was involved with the “Fife Schools Enterprise Game” which encourages entrepreneurial skills. Pupils are introduced to the concepts of economic ideas such profit, risk, investment and customer relations.

Sheet metal fabricator J&J Engineering (Stand P2) has developed a niche market to supply major supermarket chains with over a quarter of a million shelving units. Everyone knows there’re no tougher negotiators than the supermarkets. That’s why the company plans to direct some of the efficiencies this has engendered into the wider engineering markets.

It brings to the table over 20 power presses in the 20 to 250 tonne size range. In addition it has its own toolroom and tool design capacity. The toolroom also so plays an important role in maintaining production schedules when emergency tool repairs are required.

MIG TIG and stud welding is available for fabrication. There are also tube bending facilities.

As part of guaranteeing on time delivery, the company also operates its own transport. If you want to tap into the same efficiencies that impressed the supermarkets, you know where to go.

Precision machining subcontract specialist Rodmatic Limited (Stand S37) is to demonstrate its single-source strategy capability that spans assembly to production of a diverse range of components in a wide range of materials at Southern Manufacturing exhibition.

The 30,000 ft² facility at Reading houses 50 CNC sliding headstock and sliding head turn-mill centres, multi-axis fixed head turn-mill centres and 38 multi-spindle automatic lathes, that together produce over 500,000 components a week. More than 90 per cent is exported to customers in the automotive, fluid power, specialist automotive, marine and medical sectors.

Unlike many subcontract operations, Rodmatic has its own CADCAM and toolroom which has wire EDM installations used for special form tool manufacture and also very specialised component production such as for the autosport and medical sectors.

Rodmatic provides a complete service with the ability to machine small batch to continuous production as well as sourcing outside processes such as heat treatment, grinding and surface finishing. It is willing to stock parts with strict inventory control and supply standard components such as electrical or electronic items to support its assembly operations. Materials machined include mild, stainless and high alloy steels, aluminium, brass and titanium.

Building on recent advances in additive manufacturing techniques, the University of Sheffield’s Mercury Centre (Stand S 30) is expanding its range of facilities available to industry. Part financed by the European Regional Development Fund, The Mercury Centre was established in 2011 to give industry access to a series of powder based near net shape manufacturing processes. This capability extends from microscale 3D printing of electronic circuits, through production of small parts with complex geometry, to unique structural components fabricated from titanium alloys. All supported by computer modelling of products and process, as well as an extensive range of materials characterisation facilities.

Adding to existing capability in metal injection moulding and additive layer manufacturing, recent acquisitions include, spark plasma sintering for the rapid processing of ceramic materials, Aerosol Jet for functional 3D printing, selective laser melting and a large multipurpose electron beam welding unit.

Drawing upon the support and expertise of a multidisciplinary team, the Mercury Centre provides the perfect platform for industry to learn and ultimately adopt these innovative manufacturing methods which have the ability to increase materials utilisation, speed up development times and increase component complexity and functionality.

Parker Steel is exhibiting at Southern Manufacturing for the first time this year. The firm’s profile includes over 25,000 tonnes of steel in stock, a massive shotblaster and primer, seven laser cutting machines, two waterjet cutting machines plus tube laser and plasma cutter to enhance the existing profile machines. In addition to this, the firm operates a fleet of 75 lorries to distribute steel throughout Southern England.

The Canterbury-based firm recently announced a huge investment at a dockside development in Shoreham, enabling it to unload 5000 tonne ships directly. At 160,000 square ft and 1,100 tonnes of structural steel, the steel processing plant is the biggest to be built in the UK in the last 20 years. The plant will be the most advanced processing centre in Europe and will be fully functional in early 2012. The plant will be fully automated and only require minimal human assistance. Steel is simply loaded on to the conveyor where it passes through the automated processing plant, before being loaded on to a vehicle ready for immediate dispatch. This automated system cuts down on time and cost, enabling keener pricing for customers.

Along with steels of various types, Parkers also offers non-ferrous metals and a wide variety of processing services. Customers can order and manage their accounts online to make it even easier to manage stock purchasing.