Nothing ventured, nothing gained

The term ‘solutions provider' is arguably overused these days, but it does reflect the changing requirements of the manufacturing marketplace pretty accurately. For the supply chain, it's simply no longer good enough to be a mere supplier of products – end users now want more – much more. Lichfield-based tooling company Unimerco recognised this long ago and has based its operating strategy around helping its customers optimise their manufacturing processes.

Unimerco's managing director Nigel Souster makes no excuses about his company's primary aims and objectives. I visited the company a year ago and in that regard, nothing has changed. One solitary element underpins Unimerco's raison d'être - and that's to offer clients tooling solutions that will save significant amounts of money and slash manufacturing costs. In fact, Mr Souster guarantees a minimum cost saving of 30% for applicable companies. “If we don't achieve this, then I'm not doing my job properly,” he declares.

Operating from its 30,000ft² purpose-built manufacturing facility, Unimerco sees itself as a vendor of optimised tooling solutions and it achieves this via three main elements of the business: the manufacture and supply of standard tools; the manufacture and supply of customised tooling and its Re∙New service. This is all backed by an extensive R&D capability based in Denmark. The tooling itself extends from drills and reamers through to taps, milling cutters and toolholders.

A good start

Unimerco works hard to establish and nurture long term relationships with customers and serves practically all of the aerospace primes and well as leading players in the automotive, power generation and fluid power sectors. “In essence, as suppliers of optimised tooling, our major customers take advantage of the total package,” explains Mr Souster. “They buy bespoke or standard tooling from us; we manage it through a tool vending management system and after use we restore tools to better than original condition via our Re∙New service. All our services are complementary – and what we're not about is simply supplying large volumes of standard tooling. There are already a million companies out there already doing that.”

However Mr Souster sees Unimerco's approach as a journey and fully recognises the fact that not all companies will require the whole shooting match. With this in mind, Unimerco's Re.New capability is often the first port of call for new customers and some may never progress beyond this. “Whilst it's true that many of our customers are large, global organisations, we can help companies of virtually any size,” Mr Souster enthuses, “and a good starting point is through Re∙New.”

The Unimerco philosophy of building effective customer relationships is pretty simple and refreshingly effective. Start small – often with Re.New – and help the customer start making significant cost savings on tooling. As the customer becomes more profitable, Unimerco will offer to look at component manufacture and offer standard and bespoke tooling packages that will enhance productivity even further. Then, as output increases more machines may need to be purchased which ultimately means more business for Unimerco. The Re∙New service continues to feature as the relationship grows.

“It's a win win situation,” emphasises Mr Souster. “We grow our business by growing our customers' businesses – and for any company thinking about giving us a try, they won't pay us a penny until our results are conclusively proved.”

Like new … but better

Re∙New is therefore often the starting point but what is it exactly? Well quite simply it's a service offered by Unimerco that will restore worn tooling to its original condition or better – and that's guaranteed. “It's important to get across the fact that Re∙New is much more than a simple regrind operation,” Mr Souster emphasises. “Tools bearing the Re∙New brand are guaranteed to perform equal to or even better than a brand new tool and although we can restore tools to their original geometries, we'll often totally enhance performance and tool life by changing the geometry and applying various coatings via our in-house coating facility. It's not uncommon for Re∙New branded tooling to last three times as long as the original.”

Quite a departure perhaps from the more traditional sales technique of: ‘customer breaks a tool; supplier sells the customer a new one'? “Absolutely,” Mr Souster reiterates. “I want our customers to use our services to save them money and that's a totally different approach.”

All Re∙New tools are supplied with a performance guarantee and Unimerco can apply the process to a range of tooling including solid carbide, brazed carbide, brazed PCD tools, veined PCD tools, HSS, and powder metal tools. Standard turnaround times are one week for uncoated tools and two weeks for coated.

Consistency guaranteed

Unimerco operates a system called Norms Management where all tooling data in terms of geometry and coating is stored on a central database accessible to the entire Unimerco global network. Apart from this meaning that work is transferable between sites, more importantly it means that all Unimerco's CNC machines operate using precisely the same machining data.
Re∙New branded tools are processed in accordance with their original geometries and/or Unimerco Norms and instructions are developed, maintained and distributed centrally so that once Re∙New data is stored, processes can be applied consistently and accurately time after time. An additional point worthy of mention is that Re∙New can be applied to tools from any tooling manufacturer and initial trials are conducted free of charge. Basically if Re∙New results don't meet Unimerco's expectations in terms of enhanced performance and productivity, you don't pay!

Often surface treatment is applied during the Re∙New process with a number of coatings available including: C1 (TiN); C2 (TiCN); C3 (TiALN); C5 (CrN). Particularly worthy of note is Unimerco's C7plus nanocomposite coating. With excellent heat resistance characteristics, the coating maintains stability and performance up to temperature of 1,200ºC with a hardness of 45GPa.

“Our C7plus nanocomposite coating is particularly effective for hard metal applications,” Mr Souster adds. “It's a very hard coating due to Si3N4 filling ‘gaps' between AiTiN grains to inhibit dislocations and it has high temperature performance thanks to Si3N4 acting as a diffusion barrier to delay onset of oxidation.”

No brainer

Closer analysis of Re∙New reveals that significant cost savings can be realised by any company large or small. If the cost of a new carbide drill is £50, the cost of Re.New on that drill would be £20. Six new tools would therefore cost £300 whereas one new tool plus five ‘Re∙Newed' tools would only cost £150. Tool costs in this case would be halved with no loss of performance. Bit of a no-brainer really!

A further example is a ‘real life' aerospace manufacturer carrying out an airframe assembly process. The customer had never used a regrind service before and in fact actively discouraged the use of regrinds until Unimerco had proved its capability.

For this customer, a new tool for a particular process cost £100. The average Re∙New cost for this tool was £33 and due to the process involved, two Re∙New procedures had to be carried out.
The original new tool spend per annum equated to £500,000, but using Re∙New this was reduced to £348,500 – a saving of £151,500. “Although this example is with a high end user, the logic can be applied to much smaller applications,” Mr Souster explains. “Properly implemented, Re∙New saves between 33% and 60% of the cost of using new tools alone. For a company spending even as little as £100-£200 a month on tooling we can save them money – and it won't cost them a penny until we can prove it.”

Criminal activity

Mr Souster believes that the direct correlation of tooling on productivity and profitability is grossly underestimated by many companies. “The problem is that tooling is often selected purely on the cost price of the tooling,” he says. “A company wouldn't casually allow a buyer to purchase a new machine tool without a detailed evaluation process so why is this the case with tooling? “As a manufacturing nation, the UK, to compete globally, needs to get its act together in terms of minimising wastage and enhancing productivity,” he concludes. “We see so much money being wasted on tools that it's criminal. All we ask is that any manufacturing company large or small gives us a try. They've really got nothing to lose and everything to gain.” Unimerco
www.unimerco.us