Quality guaranteed

Investment in a 5-axis machine tool from Mazak has prompted a ‘mini-revolution’ in the machine shop of a Welsh precision subcontractor. PES reports. 

“My passion was always motorsport and, because I was an engineer, people were always asking me to make parts on a CNC machine I had at home,” says Malcolm Walters, director at Cwm Engineering.

It was his passion that led him to set up his company in 2011 and is key to its continuing success, making it one of the leading players in Welsh manufacturing. “I was a turning manager for a company at the time, but the weekend working was becoming too much, so I decided to make the business full-time.”

From the outset, Mr Walters had a clear vision of the sort of engineering business he wanted to run. “I didn’t want Cwm to be just a jobshop – I wanted us to be somewhere that customers can come to find solutions, discuss their options and find a trusted partner.”

Central to Cwm’s vision is a commitment to quality that has been pivotal to the company’s success since day one. “Obviously, cost is a factor, but I feel quality and on-time delivery is more important to people now than actual costing, especially when producing parts for clients in critical industries where there is zero margin for error within the final application,” Mr Walters affirms.

Cwm Engineering’s quality system is approved to ISO 9001 which guarantees part traceability on all components it manufactures. That focus on quality has led to the company establishing its 12,000ft² Carmarthenshire-based headquarters as a critical component in the supply chain to a host of tier one subcontractors and OEMs across a variety of advanced manufacturing sectors.

Indeed, Cwm is currently manufacturing parts for customers operating across the aerospace, defence, plant and machinery, medical, R&D, and automotive sectors, both within the UK and beyond.

The personal touch

The company now employs ten people providing a range of services, including conventional and CNC turning and milling across a range of materials including stainless steels, high temperature alloys, titanium, brasses, aluminium alloys and plastics.

“Our niche is small-to-medium batch work – 20, 50,100-off parts coming off the machine – which is the sort of batch sizes where our experience in project testing, accuracy reporting and customer service come into their own. We are very proud of the fact that we’ve kept our core personal touch values. That’s a big part of the business that I think a lot of our customers appreciate. It makes us a very easy company to deal with,” Mr Walters adds.

Making the right choices

According to Mr Walters, pivotal to Cwm Engineering’s commitment to quality is its relationship with Mazak: “When we were looking to set up the company, I looked at different machines but, in the end, I went to my bank manager and said: ‘Look, what I can buy for £30,000 is basically a load of rubbish. It’s going to be unreliable and there is no warranty with it. Or we can pay a little more and I can get a brand new Mazak. I’ll get it installed properly, have the right training and we can both be confident it will have all its guarantees and warranties. It’s just a much better machine.’ Fortunately, he agreed with me, and we bought the Mazak.”

Seven machines later, Mazak remains an essential ingredient in Cwm’s production capabilities: “You can’t manufacture high quality components on poor machines. We have a saying, ‘near-enough is not good enough’ and that’s why we partner with Mazak,” Mr Walters enthuses. “The evidence is in our investments – we now have three 530C vertical machining centres, two QTS Smart lathes and a QTN Nexus lathe.”

Stepping up to 5-axis

However, pride of place currently goes to the company’s latest acquisition, a CV5-500 5-axis machining centre, designed and manufactured at Mazak’s Worcester facility.

“We were finding that components with a lot of side features needed a different operation for each face every time and that can impact both quality and machining time,” Mr Walters recalls. “With a 5-axis machine you can do five faces in one go with no moving the component around and no separate setups. It keeps the squareness and trueness in everything we machine.

“In fact, it’s no exaggeration to say that the CV5-500 has prompted a mini revolution in the machine shop. What is tending to happen now is that everything is going through the CV5-500 and the 3-axis machines are used for secondary operations.”

Most important to Malcolm Walters is Mazak’s commitment to UK manufacturing and the quality of support he receives: “I like the UK built machines made in Worcester. That was one of the main drivers for me – the fact that their machines are made in the UK. That, and the commitment Mazak has towards supporting their customers; their door is always open for advice and training. We can send somebody up to solve a problem so there is always that back-up. They’ve also got plenty of engineers on the road.”

Closer to home

Mr Walters believes that UK manufacturing’s commitment and reputation for quality will only accelerate reshoring: “I was talking to a senior manager recently and she was complaining about the quality of machining coming out of some countries and the shipping costs.

“I explained our approach and she asked if she could send part drawings to us for costing. I think that’s where people are really seeing the difference. Yes, there is always going to be an upfront cost but in return you get excellent quality, reliability and good customer service. At the end of the day you get what you pay for.”

Going forward, Mr Walters intends to expand and invest further: “We’ll have two CV5-500 machines by the end of the summer and we are also looking to increase our turning capacity. My goal is to get an Integrex within two to three years. That’s a dream of mine – I just feel that it’s an all-in-one machine and there’s very little it can’t do.

“We’ve found there is a comfort factor for our customers that we have the right equipment,” he concludes. “Our ongoing investment plans in Mazak equipment are further evidence that we’re serious about what we do.”

Yamazaki Mazak UK
www.mazakeu.co.uk

Cwm Engineering
www.cwmengineering.co.uk