Getting a grip on surgical components
Most of the surgical hand grips had 50% plus of their cycle times removed – a combination of the faster machine and the right machining strategy
Bushell and Meadows gained the competitive edge for a surgical products customer by investing in a Matsuura horizontal machining centre that cut cycle times in half – it is now investing in a similar machine for the aerospace sector.
The investment last year in the Matsuura H.Plus-300 horizontal for the production of surgical hand tool grips has heralded new growth and impetus for Bushell & Meadows. It hopes that its second H.Plus-300 will build on this success.
Established in 1960 Bushell and Meadows steadily has expanded its high quality subcontract engineering and bespoke component supply business over the past decades. After a move in 2005 it is now based at a purpose-built 20,000 sq foot factory in Tewkesbury.
Even through the recent recession and its aftermath, it continued its investment strategy of replacing critical old technology production machines with bespoke latest technology from market leading producers. Director George Desoutter views this strategy as vital to gain a market edge over competitors in a UK market that is getting busier for companies that can produce one off and volume complex close tolerance geometric components, as well as offering substantial value added services to that growing market sector.
October 2009 saw the company take possession of its first Matsuura machine tool – a horizontally aligned H.Plus-300 configured with twin pallets, 120 tools and a 15,000rpm spindle with 20bar through spindle coolant system.
The primary driver for sourcing a higher quality machine was reliability - and of course the quality, repeatability and consistency of the output. A secondary driver was to improve the cycle time per part.
George Desoutter said: “Looking at the old process even using the original horizontal we approached it in a traditional manner. With the Matsuura, we started with a blank sheet of paper in terms of machining strategy and process - and we benefited enormously by investing in a turn key package. Matsuura challenged our thinking and proposed a whole new approach, and working closely with Bushell & Meadows engineers, who after all know our products very well, we collectively came up with a much better way of producing the component sets. Most of the surgical hand grips had 50% plus of their cycle times removed – a combination of the faster machine and the right machining strategy. 50% is a massive bonus for us – coupled with higher reliability and quality – these factors have made a huge difference to our investment thinking and ongoing strategy regarding critical machine tool technology”.
The original Matsuura H.Plus-300 offered some potential to diversify the business and extend its presence in a traditional area of expertise for Bushell & Meadows – aerospace, and the second machine will take this further.
Mr Desoutter explains: “We were undertaking work for a new aerospace customer and we were processing this work on a mixture of verticals and horizontals with multiple ops – the customer was pleased with our output but we were not making a significant margin on the work because we were up against competitors with 5 axis machines.
“So, we started to put some of this work onto the Matsuura, actually one of the turnkey jobs for this new customer, and it substantially reduced the cycle times and made us much more competitive – resulting in huge growth from that customer in the aerospace part of our business - and on the back of that we are investing in the second Matsuura purely for that customers order workload whilst the existing Matsuura will be tasked with work solely from the medical sector.
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