Winning streak

MHP produced the helmets for Team GB’s cycle team for both the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Olympics using the software to help speed up the process and now has plans to expand the use of Tebis throughout the business to achieve similar results.

MHP was founded in 1972 and initially produced patterns for the foundry industry but then it evolved to develop a broader customer base and moved into plastics. The business, based in High Wycombe, now has capabilities in vacuum forming, toolmaking, 3- and 5-axis routing, CNC machining, assembly and fabrication, packing and distribution. Tebis was chosen after MHP decided that the 5-axis functionality within the software would suit its needs perfectly.

The Olympic project began a number of years ago when MHP were commissioned by UK Sport to produce the helmets for the British racing cycling team. Two types of helmet were developed by British Cycling and the team at MHP, one for Pursuit and one for Sprint events and the project involved former cyclist Chris Boardman.

According to MHP, the helmets were a real feat of engineering – aerodynamic, streamlined and created in one piece. In fact, MHP had to design the tooling to manufacture the helmets as per the designs, such was the challenge it faced. The hard work was justly rewarded with 12 medals won by riders wearing MHP helmets in 2012 with the helmets also used for the Paralympics resulting in a further 22 medals.

In preparation for the 2016 Olympics, the helmets were all cut using Tebis software which facilitated a smooth workflow, rapid turnaround and a premium trimming finish. Regarding the project, Mark Hipgrave, director at MHP says: “We were proud to have been chosen for a second time to be involved in the production of the helmets for the British racing cycling team. The finish for 2016 was even better with the use of Tebis and its high-speed trimming capabilities. It appears some of the increased speed rubbed off on our Olympic team in Rio.”

The company is looking to the future with an investment programme and recently purchased a new Haas VF9 CNC machine. It is also looking to increase its use of Tebis CAD/CAM software to replace previously a previously installed package from another developer.

“The software package we were using worked OK but as the company grew, customer demands became greater and we needed to find something more sophisticated.” Mr Hipgrave explains. “We’re currently in the process of going through all our previous programmes and re-programming them with Tebis; the time savings on the trimming operations have been significant and another benefit is that post-trimming finishing processes have been drastically reduced. The interface is extremely user-friendly.”

MHP employees have attended training courses at Tebis’ UK premises in Coventry and regularly hold online viewer sessions with Tebis application engineers to ensure they are fully up to speed with the latest software developments.

Following the success of using Tebis software to optimise the trimming process, MHP is now looking to expand its use into machining operations on the tooling side. “We currently have five CNC machines with capacity up to 3m x 1m x 1m and we’re looking to use the software to optimise cutting paths and cut machining times down,” Mr Hipgrave concludes.

Tebis www.tebis.com/uk/en/

MHP Industries www.mhp-uk.com