New Thinking, New Growth, New Horizontals
7 April 2011
An investment a year ago in a Matsuura H.Plus-300 horizontal for the production of surgical hand tool grips has heralded new growth and impetus for Bushell & Meadows, so much so that a second H.Plus-300 has just been ordered.
Director George Desoutter talks about their experiences.
Established in 1960 Bushell and Meadows steadily expanded as a market leader in the area of high quality sub-contract engineering and bespoke component supply over the past decades, forming long standing business to business relationships with some of the UK’s best known companies.
The growth for Bushell & Meadows has been substantial, culminating in a 2005 move to a purpose built 20,000 sq foot state of the art factory in Tewkesbury, conveniently located just off of junction 9 of the M5.
In recent times the investment strategy regarding key production technology has changed substantially, moving on from low cost machine tools to acquiring the very latest technology, befitting the company’s long term aim to nurture & maintain their growing reputation for excellence. It is becoming widely accepted that the initial cost of a machine tool is only part of the financial commitment story for any company during the productive life of a machine tool investment. In Bushell & Meadows experience over the past year, more reliable machines, actually cost the company less over an investment cycle due to the fact that they break down less offering reliable delivery and production, deliver faster and more versatile operation and require less spare parts and service visits.
Even through the recent recession and its aftermath, Bushell & Meadows have continued their investment strategy in state of the art machine tools, aiming to replace 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 who 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 their 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 machine has the pre-build option of upgrading tool storage to 240 at a later date.
Other additional options integrated at Matsuura UK include Renishaw NC4 Laser Probe, Renishaw OMP60 and FSE Drum Filtration System. Although as standard the H.Plus-300 possesses 300mm2 pallets, the Bushell & Meadows machine is fitted with twin 400mm2 pallets – offering more working area but no detriment to machine performance or working envelope.
Speaking of the change in investment thinking prior to the Matsuura at Bushell & Meadows, George stated: “The starting point was proving the technology & method in terms of utilising a horizontal solution with a lower cost machine – the horizontal was clearly the way forward, even though the low cost machine was not technically capable of maintaining quality and production. We had huge reliability issues with it – typically we had two to three weeks a year where the machine suffered downtime – a massive impediment to fulfilling customer orders. Sourcing UK parts in an acceptable timeframe proved very problematic.
Identifying the problems with the previous horizontal supplier could take up to a week – then came the inevitable wait for overseas shipping to supply the spare parts, and sometimes up to another week to fit the parts – only to discover that the problem had not been solved. And so the whole cycle began again – so in some instances we had the machine down for a month. That was our sole production machine producing the surgical tool hand grips at the time - and our customer was obviously very concerned.
So the primary driver for sourcing a higher quality machine was reliability - and of course the quality, repeatability and consistency of the output. Based on our previous experience with the original low cost machine, we were looking for a supplier who had the UK infrastructure - service and technical support whereby they would be in “next day” to address any problems - eliminating as much machine downtime as possible was vital in our selection process”
A secondary driver for Bushell & Meadows in sourcing a higher quality machine was to improve the cycle time per part.
George continues: “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 all round engineering service Bushell & Meadows offer includes CNC Milling, 5 Axis CNC Milling, CNC Turning, Sliding Head Turning, Manual & CNC Grinding, Product Assembly, Mill Turn, Anodising, Plating & Treatments. The quality and all encompassing nature of the sub-contract supply business that Bushell & Meadows have built has formed very strong bonds and loyalty from their customer and supplier base.
Bushell & Meadows specialise in CNC machining of complex components from a variety of materials including titanium, plastics, aluminium, stainless steel and other special alloys. Quantity can vary from small batches and prototypes to full production runs.
A key revenue stream for the company is their long standing presence in the Medical sector in which they have considerable technical prowess and expertise. In 2010 the company achieved ISO13485 Approval Medical Quality Standard, further enhancing their reputation for excellence in the field. Bushell & Meadows also possess British Standards Institution BS EN ISO 9001:2000 Quality Management System accreditation.
Commenting further on the output of the H.Plus-300 and the extended benefits, George states; “We were also very keen to reduce our set up times. The previous machine only had a 30 tool ATC, so between each job we had to break the machine down, de-tool and re-tool - that was essential production time lost.
With the Matsuura we specified 120 tools on a 240 base originally – we have added two more tool post stations taking storage capacity to 180 so the machine is always ready in terms of on board tools – no matter which variant of the component we are running that day.
We have also looked at how we were fixturing the component – we can now get multiple parts off in one loading which has introduced unmanned running into our production stream, a huge benefit in terms of volume production and the cost of the process.
The Matsuura has been installed for almost a year now and we have not had any service issues, which is pretty good by any measure. Any minor niggles have been dealt with straight away – next day niggle fixed. In terms of lower cost of ownership, the main one for Bushell & Meadows is lower depreciation and the fact that the residual value of a higher specification and quality machine tool resonates long after the initial purchase – as said, we can also produce a lot more now via the one horizontal spindle”.
“Lower cost of ownership” is a phrase that is entering the mindset of many UK subcontract businesses in terms of their key technology investments. The less a machine tool breaks down, the more production you receive from it. The unknown costs of unreliable production machines such as those arising from lost production and the subsequent unquantifiable reputational damage to a subcontractor with their customer base, are growing factors for many companies when sourcing a machine tool supplier.
Growing sector supply activity is never far from Georges mind.
The original Matsuura H.Plus-300 offered some potential to diversify the business and extend their presence in a traditional area of expertise for Bushell & Meadows – Aerospace, so much so that a second H.Plus-300 has now been ordered.
George 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.
Traditionally, 30 – 40 years ago, Bushell & Meadows was purely supplying aerospace - the diversification into Medical came around 25 years ago. We maintained our aerospace customer base, but did not significantly grow that aspect of the business in that time. The new Matsuura shows that we are actively seeking a wider customer base supplying a wider spectrum of high quality precision industries. We are very happy with the progress of late, as this investment demonstrates.
We are also looking at further investments to accelerate our growth and seizing the new opportunities for British precision subcontractors – we envisage a 5 axis investment in the short term. It is the next stage for Bushell & Meadows due to the growing complexity of the work we are acquiring – some of the work we are undertaking now on the 4 axis horizontal lends itself to a 5 axis process, and we now have the confidence that we can make that transition process very smoothly and integrate the new technology – I am confident that Matsuura can assist us in the process. I doubt it will be as big a step change as going from a low cost horizontal to the Matsuura.
The reliability of the first Matsuura has been spot on – we are running the machine flat out and we have not had any issues with it at all. The quality of the actual components we are getting off is much better than we used to get and the repeatability we are achieving on components is second to none.
Even though it is essentially a “horizontal solution” as we had before, you cannot compare the two”.
For more information about Bushell & Meadows please visit their website at:
www.bushell-meadows.co.uk
