Programming ease

 
It was back in 1998 that, in partnership with younger brother Nigel and colleague Ryan Mower, Mr Locke took on the running of the Thetford, Norfolk-based subcontract business, where he had spent the previous seven years working as a machinist.

Two years later, with the business back on a sound financial footing, the decision was made to invest in a CNC/manual mill. This was to be the first of several CNC machine tools supplied by XYZ Machine Tools and it was to have a significant impact on the future direction of the company.

The most recent capital investment is the XYZ ProTURN SLX 425 1.25m between centres CNC/manual lathe installed in May this year. The new 7.5kW/25-2,500rpm gap bed lathe has a 480mm swing over bed/700mm swing in gap and features constant surface speed (CSS) as standard. Reflecting advances in microchip technology and use of the Windows XP operating system, the latest generation ProtoTRAK SLX control is even more intuitive to use than before, with ‘plain English' prompts contributing to significantly reduced set-up times in one-off and low volume applications.

“Our turnover has continued to grow as a direct consequence of moving to CNC machining, as these machine tools are much more productive,” says Mr Locke “The conversational aspect has enabled me and everyone here to get up to speed very quickly, and this means we can respond quickly to urgent requests. As a team we always do our best to help our customers and, in return, word of mouth recommendations help to keep us busy, even in these difficult times.”

CJ Engineering has gained a reputation for its willingness to tackle challenging work, especially those involving the precision machining of hard materials. Reflecting its location in one of the UK's major agricultural areas, the company has extensive experience of machining replacement parts for agricultural machinery in abrasion resistant Hardox. This is a martensitic steel available from its Swedish producer in several hardness levels up to 600HB and ideally suited to use in heavy-duty equipment such as hedge cutters and shredders subject to heavy abrasion.

Demand from the agricultural sector tends to be seasonal, but CJ Engineering applies its knowledge of difficult-to-machine materials such as Hastelloy and Inconel to the precision machining of aerospace related components and other equally demanding applications. It also tackles less demanding challenges involving the milling and turning of aluminium, mild and stainless steels, and plastics. With plenty of competition for this type of work, Mr Locke emphasises the need to not overprice the job and to look to more efficient production methods as the way to stay profitable. “We regarded that first CNC machine purchase as a huge gamble at the time as we could have bought two or three manual machines for the same money,” he explains. “However, it was the right decision because it has allowed the company to grow and become more productive without the pressure of needing to find and recruit additional skilled people. By opting for CNC machines we have also been able to take on more complex work – the type of work that we could never compete for with purely manual machines.”

C J Engineering currently has eleven XYZ machine tools, including two vertical machining centres equipped with Siemens ShopMill conversational CNCs. These controls, like ProtoTRAK, can be programmed easily without any specific programming coding knowledge being required, which is one of the reasons why CNC programming at CJ Engineering is carried out at the machine rather than offline.

“Even if I could justify employing a full-time CNC programmer I prefer not to,” says Kevin Locke, “as all the machining knowledge we need is out there on the shopfloor. If all that was required of people here was simply to run a CNC machine, life would be pretty boring. I wouldn't want to do that and I don't expect others to do it either. As it happens, ease of programming is one of the many things we like about XYZ machines, and switching between ProtoTRAK and Siemens does not present any problems as both systems can be programmed without using G and M codes.”

XYZ Machine Tools
www.xyzmachinetools.com