COVER STORY MID-MARCH: Unlocking the productivity puzzle

2017 was a cracking year for Uckfield, East Sussex-based cutting fluid specialist, Jemtech. Sales were up 17% on the previous year but perhaps more significantly, CEO Steve Coull believes the penny is finally dropping regarding the importance of cutting fluids in the productivity puzzle. Dave Tudor reports.

The iceberg analogy used by Jemtech on a number of marketing campaigns in the past, is an accurate graphical representation of the true ‘cost’ of cutting fluids. The portion above the water is the price you pay for the fluid itself – and to some companies this is where it ends. They would advocate a ‘get the cheapest fluid on the market and spend more money on the important parts of the equation – machine tools and cutting tools’ type approach.

This however is short-sighted to say the least. Going back to the iceberg, the real cost of ownership of cutting fluid lies beneath the surface and is all about reducing cycle time. Once operators start to run into problems with vibration and tools breaking, they’ll instinctively back off feeds and speeds, blissfully unaware of the fact that properly managed, high quality cutting fluids can have a direct bearing on productivity. They are, after all the vital ingredient that connects the cutting tool with the workpiece and are a main contributing factor towards reducing heat, vibration and tool wear.

Small cost, big impact

Generally, cutting fluid represents less than 0.5% of the total cost in a machining process. Cutting tools represent about 5%. Increasing tool life by as little as 10% through the use of high quality cutting fluids, will effectively cover the cost. Conversely, poor quality coolant will have the opposite effect.

“I think the penny is starting to drop,” Steve Coull explains. “Sales of Blaser Swisslube products (Jemtech is the exclusive UK distributor) are up and it’s the same story with Oracle, our fully-automated fluid management system that we introduced a couple of years ago.

“In terms of Blaser, Vasco 7000, a clean, high performance, water miscible, vegetable ester oil-based cutting fluid, is now our biggest selling product – and this is predominantly in high technology sectors such as aerospace, medical and F1/motorsport. Educating companies to understand that all cutting fluids are not created equally and you really do get what you pay for is an ongoing challenge but we’re getting there.”

Chlorine, boron, formaldehyde and bactericide-free Vasco 7000 is Jemtech’s flagship cutting fluid. “It’s a good all-round product that can be used on a variety of materials,” says Stewart Coull, Jemtech’s managing director. “It’s particularly effective on hard to machine metals like titanium, Inconel, Waspalloy, Hastelloy and stainless steels, but it also works well on aluminium, producing excellent surface finishes.

“Another important element we’ve discovered since we’ve been collecting data from Oracle is that Vasco 7000 exhibits really low drag out characteristics,” he adds. “In simplistic terms, this means that it doesn’t stick to swarf so more fluid is retained in the machine.”

Evaluate to accumulate

Underpinning Blaser and Jemtech’s business ethic is LiquidTool. Far more than just the supply of cutting fluid, this is a highly detailed, holistic, software-based analysis carried out by Jemtech engineers that fully evaluates a customer’s process. If Jemtech identifies areas of improvement then it’ll make recommendations – along with calculated cost savings – to the customer via a customised report. If, following the evaluation the Jemtech engineer feels he or she genuinely can’t improve the process, this will be reported – upfront and with no ambiguity. These however are rare occurrences.

But it’s not just cutting fluids that fall under the LiquidTool spotlight: “In truth, many customers don’t know how much they actually spend on cutting tools and fluids,” Mr Coull observes, “so the very first step is to look at the existing component, process or application in its entirety and progress from there.

“At the start of the conversation, customers often ask how much money we can save them? The honest answer is ‘we don’t know as we don’t know exactly what you do’. Once we’ve established the ‘before’ we can advise on the ‘after’, including the potential cost savings. We don’t talk percentages, we talk money; all we stipulate – and we insist on this contractually via an NDA – is that if we deliver the validated and forecasted savings, then we win the business. It’s important to note that our predictions are always on the conservative side. Often the benefits can actually be much greater.

He continues: “A good example of this was with a recent customer who was using a two-flute chamfering tool in a process,” he adds. “We suggested that he change the tool to a four-flute variant and the result was a reduction in cycle time from 70 to 38 seconds. Obviously that’s nothing to do with cutting fluids whatsoever but the point is we’ll look in detail at the entire process – literally under the microscope – and make recommendations that can be 100% verified and validated. All members of our team are time-served engineers with a wealth of practical experience.”

The all-encompassing LiquidTool approach is the way Jemtech likes to work with its customers. On price per barrel, Blaser fluids are certainly not the cheapest per litre so if things were purely about unit costs, it would have gone out of business years ago. It hasn’t. Jemtech isn’t a Pound Shop. Sales are up 17% on last year and it’s looking to recruit five more members of staff this year. That speaks volumes.

“We visited a company in the Midlands recently and they were paying £1.98 per litre for coolant from a competitor,” Mr Coull affirms. “Cheap as chips maybe, but the fluid itself contained 70% water. Why on earth would any company ship water around the country – there’s plenty in the tap! By comparison, our Blasocut water-based cutting fluids contain only 3% water. This isn’t comparing apples with apples here. Customers that buy into our philosophy really don’t care about the cost per barrel because the real savings are made by looking at the bigger picture.”

Oracle evolution

Jemtech’s Oracle fluid management system was hot news when it was first unveiled at the MTC in Coventry 18 months ago. In true Industry 4.0 fashion, Oracle provides users with a consistent supply of accurate and reliable real-time data on the condition of cutting fluids in a machine tool sump – volume, concentration, pH, temperature and conductivity as well as consumption levels – all via a comprehensive, but easy to use, secure data hub.

Not only that, but it’s self-regulating and self-adjusting; and for diagnostic, maintenance and management purposes, Jemtech can access customer systems remotely. Operationally the small footprint Oracle unit sits alongside the machine tool and is directly connected to the machine tool sump.

Admirably, Steve Coull insisted that Oracle was designed and manufactured in the UK, and that all profits would stay in the UK to fund further development: “I’m pleased to say that sales are on budget and Oracle is creating UK jobs,” he enthuses.

Headed up by Adam Land and ably assisted by ex-MTC apprentice, Robert Foster, a new company, Oracle FMS has been set-up to manage the business. Mr Coull expects the patent for Oracle to be through imminently.

A major departure for the product though is that it is now, when circumstances dictate, being used with customers using competitor products. Previously it was exclusively Blaser cutting fluids. This could well be a savvy move that could ultimately convert more customers over the Blaser. At the end of the day, it’s the customer’s choice and technically speaking it could work the other way: customers may be using manual fluid management systems on Blaser products. All’s fair in love, war – and business.

Other Oracle related news is the introduction of ‘Oracle Light’. This effectively embraces all the reporting/data collection benefits of Oracle but without the Oracle unit itself. Steve Coull explains: “Some customers have say 20 machine tools but only 12 hooked up to Oracle units. For the remaining eight machines, when we visit the client as part of a routine call, we’ll check the condition of the cutting fluids, make any necessary changes and input the results on the customer’s data hub. In this way, the customer has all his data in one place, even if a particular machine (or machines) for whatever reason, doesn’t warrant the purchase of an Oracle unit.”

“We have Oracle light customers who don’t have Oracle units at all,” Stewart Coull advises. “The part they like is having the data graphically represented on a digital hub because it’s much more visible that recording it on a label on the side of the machine.”

Onward and upward

With business so healthy and the company looking to recruit more staff, plans are afoot to move into new premises late 2018/early 2019. Approximately six times the size of the current facility in Uckfield – and just a stone’s throw away – the new £2 million investment will house office space, a warehouse, laboratory and a boardroom.

Interestingly, there will also be a showroom complete with machine tools. Jemtech prefers to carry out LiquidTool evaluations at the customer’s premises using the client’s actual equipment but this is not always possible or practical. Jemtech will now have that capability in-house.

So it’s shaping up to be a busy year for Jemtech. Oracle will continue to evolve as a product and the company is looking at exporting to overseas markets.

And, in addition to the aforementioned new facility relocation, Jemtech staff and products will also be out in force at the forthcoming MACH 2018 exhibition taking place at the NEC Birmingham in April.

Jemtech www.jemtech.co.uk

Oracle Fluid Management Systems www.oraclefms.co.uk

Company

Jemtech

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