Destined for success

It was a bold decision by two enthusiastic partners, George Dingley and Yian Stavrou, to set-up their Sub-CNC Precision subcontract machining business in April 2009. At that time many would have held back amid the worst recession for many decades. Solutions reports.

Both Mr Dingley and Mr Stavrou are time served engineers, growing up around small turned parts produced in subcontract machine shops. Between them they have wide experience, totalling some 25 years, setting mainly Citizen machines.

Far from being reckless but showing total commitment to success, the decision to go it alone has certainly paid off. Within 18 months, Sub-CNC Precision installed two Citizen CNC sliding head turn/mill centres and a fixed head 2-axis lathe, all of which now virtually run around the clock serving a customer base that spans telecoms, aerospace, motorsport, medical, defence, marine and agricultural sectors.

Having worked through the problems encountered during the last recession in the 1990s and benefitting from a period of almost continuous growth up until the tide turned again two years ago, they both felt that this time they wanted to be in control of their own destiny. As Mr Dingley recounts: “We had a distinct advantage – that we understood machining and knew how to get the very best performance from a sliding head machine. We were confident we had something to offer customers providing we had the right type of equipment.”

Silver lining

After much discussion they decided to pool their resources and went off in search of a second hand Citizen that was affordable. Here, the recession paid off for them providing the advantage of reasonably priced used machines being available which is contrary to today, where they are scarce.

Mr Stavrou then reflects how suddenly everything sprang into life. “We spent hours driving around, knocking on doors to find premises before we found an old grain barn with no windows or ceiling but conveniently located close to Luton Airport. We could also quickly convert it to what we needed. Then it was more time searching the Internet for opportunities, thinking about our targeting strategy and on the phone chasing down work.”www.citizenmachinery.co.uk

A chance meeting at an exhibition led to their first order after talking to a designer who gave them a contact for an enquiry to produce thermocouples. “We quoted and quickly won the order,” Mr Dingley reveals. “More activity followed in trying to set-up lines of credit in a progressively difficult market so we could buy the likes of tooling, materials and coolant. While getting the whole facility organised, responses to our business development activities began to draw more enquiries – mainly from other subcontractors, but in a famine you have to hunt to put food on the table. We were obviously very competitive in our pricing and work started to flow through the door.”

Christmas spirit

Mr Dingley recalls how quickly they were filling the capacity of the Citizen and customers, totally happy with the service, were becoming more helpful and offered to give them more work if they could machine larger components rather than being restricted to just 20mm diameter bar on the sliding head machine. “We had only been trading six months but decided to seize the opportunity and install a larger capacity 44mm bar size, 220mm chuck, 2-axis, fixed head lathe.”

Christmas 2009 will always be memorable. In early December the partners were approached by a company to produce a prototype holder for a till card reader to be installed in a supermarket chain. “The design was so complex that we decided to put forward ideas to simplify production. We said if they could accept our suggested changes we would be able to considerably reduce the cost,” Mr Dingley explains.

The customer rewarded them with a contract for 2,500 assemblies for delivery in January! “Everyone manned the pumps,” Mr Stavrou enthuses. “We machined the round parts, got a sheetmetal company to punch and bend components and organised the family and even some friends to help us to paint, glue parts together and assemble and package the units over the Christmas break to meet the delivery date.”

Both partners maintain being flexible and ensuring on time delivery has been very challenging – but the reward is there because, says Mr. Dingley: “You build a reputation and as the word spread so the workload mushroomed. We found we had to start splitting batches which was increasing pressure on us to constantly reset machines.” During the first quarter of 2010 they were running a double day shift and both were becoming concerned that being dependent on just one aging Citizen machine could have serious repercussions on their future in the event of a breakdown.

The company had only been running for 12 months and a year's order with regular call off of 10,000 parts a month was on the table from a customer. Mr Dingley comments: “The debate was very short – after hearing that a second hand Citizen L32 was available we decided to go for it.” As a result of installing the larger capacity 32mm sliding head machine, the order book continued to grow and from batches of 50 or so only a year earlier, quantities of 1,000 to 2,000 have now become the order of the day.

New blood

Despite being very busy in the summer they agreed to take on a work experience youngster who came straight from school. “Although we only had him here for two weeks, his reaction was so rewarding to us,” Mr Dingley adds. “We spent some time showing him how parts were made, the control system on the machine and before he left, gave him parts as a test in which he had to specify the tools to use to make them. He was so interested and taken in about machining that he has asked to come back for a few days to learn more.”

With three machines now running, the types of part and material are bringing new challenges and drawing heavily on their knowledge. In addition to mild steel, brass and aluminium, Sub-CNC Precision is now machining parts from Delrin, EN 24, EN 16 and EN 8, stainless steels including 303, 316, S130 and S109, titanium and Hastalloy.

For the future, Mr Dingley and Mr Stavrou are keen to progressively expand the customer base to provide a valuable cushion for the business. Further machine purchases are on the cards but that would involve either a factory move or knocking down a party wall to create more space.

Summing up, Mr Stavrou observes: “Being in relative control of your own destiny and being rewarded directly for your efforts with people saying ‘thank you' or ‘you have done a good job' and ‘we have just paid your invoice' is a great motivator which will help us drive the business forward.”

Citizen Machinery
www.citizenmachinery.co.uk

Sub-CNC Precision
www.sub-cncprecision.co.uk