Talk to Ian Weatherill, a partner of 65-employee Barnoldswick-based Hope Technology, and it is apparent that saying the company is busy is somewhat of an understatement. Demand is growing substantially year-on-year, as is the range of products; and as fast as parts are made, they are shipped out – with most having already been paid for up-front! No badgering customers to get payment within 90 days here. Yet when Machinery Market visited the machine shop of this company, which make world-renowned mountain bike components (some 25% of the world’s top 100 down-hill racers use Hope parts, including hubs and disc-based hydraulic braking systems), there appeared to be a marked lack of activity – if you judge activity by the presence of people, that is.

 

The cavernous material store is packed with an assortment of bar materials and aluminium extrusions (the extrusions that Hope needs for the economic manufacture of various braking components are not available in small quantities), yet for most of the time just one person operates the two automated sawing systems that feed the machine shop with billet material. When leaving the store, the first machines you come to are six sliding-head automatics, all operating flat-out producing an assortment of fasteners. However, at the time of the visit, there was not an operator in sight.

 

In the next area of the factory are a number of vertical machining centres and multi-pallet horizontal machining centres running ‘minimally manned’; one operator to three machines appears to be the norm. Nest is the tool room, and the machines for prototype work, followed by Hope’s most recent and most substantial machine investment – a pair of Matsuura MAM 72 five-axis multi-pallet vertical machining centres. Through a corridor towards the front of the factory, there is a laser profiling machine for cutting brake discs, and an anodising plant that the company constructed itself. “The suppliers of this equipment wanted ‘silly money’ for what was essentially a series of tanks, so we built our own system for a fraction of the cost – and we get far better results than when we sub-contracted out our anodising! We offer a total of eight anodised colours, and customers can even personalise their brake systems by mixing and matching colours.”

 

 

Mr Weatherill got the tanks for his anodising facility from an old dairy, which is somewhat ironic, as Hope Technology is itself located in what was formerly a dairy; and if you think it sounds as if the machine shop has an unusual layout with machines tucked away here and there, you are right. The old dairy has a reinforced concrete structure, with many internal walls and columns supporting a substantial roof that was originally covered with water to a depth of several feet, the aim being to keep the building cool and the milk in good condition.

 

Hope currently make more than 70,000 hydraulic brake assemblies and some 50,000 hubs annually, as well as many other mountain bike parts; and with volumes growing rapidly, a move to new premises is imminent – some contrast to working from home, which is where Mr Weatherill and his business partner Simon Sharp started their venture some 18 years ago.

 

Both tool makers at the Rolls-Royce aero-engine plant in Barnoldswick, they has a mutual interest in motorcycle trials and competed at a high level in many prestigious events (they still do; they will be riding in this year’s Scottish Six Days Trial). The idea of starting their own engineering business was to give themselves more time to pursue this hobby, but the harder they worked, the more work they got, and instead of having more time for trials, they actually ended up with less.

 

Their new venture started with the manufacture of parts for engineering projectors. The business grew fast, and the partners were soon renting small industrial units from the local council and buying more machines and equipment, having added the production of fixtures for aerospace applications, as well as parts for a local company building racing Minis.

 

Designed for optimum rigidity, the base and bridge structure of the Matsuura MAM72 weigh in at more then 6 tonnes. The work envelope is 680 x 385 x 625mm, the B axis moves from +65deg to -106deg, the C axis rotates through 360deg, and the maximum workpiece size is 350mm in diameter x 240mm high. The machine’s 32 pallets have a 130mm-diameter working surface and a loading capacity of 60kg. The double-contact 40-taper spindle is rated at 7.5/11kW and has a top speed of 12,000rev/min, and the rapid-traverse rate for the three linear axes us 40m/min. The ATC has a capacity for 120 tools and a chip-to-chip time of 5.6sec. The pallet change time is 24sec.

 

When the boom in mountain biking started, the two business partners bought a couple of bikes for fitness training. However, they were so appalled by the poor quality of many critical components that they made their own hubs and disc brake assemblies. This equipment caused such a stir in the local mountain biking community that in 1991 Mssrs Weatherill and Sharp began making production versions of their hub/disc brake assemblies. They knew that if they were going to tackle this market seriously, they would need to exhibit at major shows, and later that year 20 bikes featuring Hope braking systems were displayed on different stands at a major US show. The market was impressed by Hope’s products (it also believed the company was significantly larger than it actually was), and sales in both the UK and the USA began to rocket.

 

Being keen cyclists and motorcyclists, the pair knew just what their customers wanted; they also set out to give exceptional value for money, and from the outset they have operated ‘dealer direct’ in the UK, to cut out the middle man and ensure competitiveness without compromising any aspect of the equipment. Indeed, in independent tests, Hope brake systems have out-performed those costing twice as much from the big names in the industry. Hope also has its own warehouse, distribution and service centre in the USA.

 

The cycle parts business grew rapidly; and while many of the machined parts were bought in in the early days, all production is now in-house “even if this does fly in the face of what many consultants suggest,” says Mr Weatherill. “In the early days, we were spending £100,000 a year on sub-contract-manufactured fastenings. While the prices we were paying were competitive, we reckoned that we could provide our customers with better value by producing fasteners in-house. We bought a sliding-head machine, and as demand grew, we bought another, then another; we now have six. It was the same with laser cutting. We were paying £4-5 for cutting each disc, which was a good price, but when we looked at the cost of in-house manufacture, we knew this would be more economic. Our laser has now cut more than 250,000 discs, so I reckon I was right in spending £120,000 on this machine.”

 

Within five years, the manufacture of cycle parts was dominating the business, and when it reached the point of 90% cycles and just 10% sub-contract work, the decision was made to focus almost entirely on cycle manufacture, particularly as the 10% contract work caused 90% of the company’s problems (Hope still retains the relevant aerospace approvals so that it can continue its specialised sub-contract work for Rolls-Royce).

 

The first MAM72-35V five axis multi-pallet vertical machining centre from Matsuura Machinery plc, Coalville (Tel: 01530 511456), was installed in 2002, and it was soon running more or less non-stop seven days a week, machining left- and right-hand brake master cylinders that had been specifically designed to take advantage of five-axis operation. These parts are loaded four at a time onto the Matsuura’s 32 mini-tomb-stone fixtures. “We set aside a short time every day for cleaning and ensuring that the swarf conveyor is clear, and we are rigorous with our routine maintenance and servicing,” says Mr Weatherill. “With this level of attention, we are confident that a high-quality machine tool such as this will run reliably for at least 10 years, which equates to a machine cost alone of around £5/hr. The most expensive processes we have are those involving people, which is why we look for unmanned or minimally manned operation; and the better machine you have, the more likely you are to achieve the reliable unmanned operation that obviates people problems such as sickness and holidays.

 

“The availability of five-axis gives tremendous design flexibility and the ability to virtually finish our complex billet parts in one go, which is why we bought a second MAM72 some 18 months ago. This is used for the production of four- and six-piston callipers, which are fixtured four and two at a time respectively. Component cycle times vary from 20 to 40min, and it takes an operator just 2hr to unload and load all 32 pallets – an operation that runs in parallel with the machine operation and is started just before the last few pallets are processed, thereby ensuring that production is not interrupted. The latest part to be machined on the second MAM72 is the stem that clamps the handlebars. This features complex profiles, pockets and chamfers, and it is phenomenal to see the extent of the machine’s movement when chamfering this part, as almost all of the trunnion’s B axis is used. A five-axis capability certainly allows us to be adventurous with our designs, and to make parts that other manufacturers would have great difficulty producing economically. We also make maximum use of our two MAM72s, running them for 23hr 50min a day, seven days a week.”

 

This story was first published in Machinery Market February 2005.

 

For more information about Hope Technology & their products, please visit their website at www.hopetech.com

 

For more information on Matsuura's MAM72 simultaneous 5 axis machines, please call 01530 511400 or email sales@matsuura.co.uk