Regular investment: the bedrock of continued success

In business, it’s a given that if you don’t move forward and improve on a continual basis, you’re effectively going backwards. It’s no coincidence therefore that the most successful companies are those that embrace investment on a regular basis – just like Ilkeston, Derbyshire-based HPC Services for example. Dave Tudor reports.

This article is one of a growing number that we’ve featured in PES about British Turned Parts Manufacturing Association (BTMA) members. Headed up by managing director Paul Cobb, HPC Services was formed in 1997 and employs 30 people. It operates from a 12,000ft² facility and holds a number of accreditations including ISO 9001, AS 9100 and the ISO 14001 environmental standard.

At its core, HPC is a turning specialist offering both sliding head and fixed head capability, but this is complemented by milling and also stockholding where the company provides call-off/Kanban agreements for customers as standard with no additional charge.

“This enables us to plan our production capacity more efficiently, minimise costs through larger production runs and offer shorter lead-times,” says HPC Services’ operations manager John Bennett. “Components can also be assembled and supplied as kits.”

Informed choices

I mentioned investment in the introduction and alluded to the fact that keeping plant and equipment up to date is of paramount importance for any aspiring manufacturing company. Technology advances at unrelenting speed and to compete, companies need to optimise all aspects of their respective businesses to remain competitive.

It’s important to listen to your customers and respond to market needs to ensure investments in equipment are made wisely and that’s exactly what HPC Services has done through £2m worth of investment over the past three years.

HPC has 18 machine tools at its disposal sourced from a variety of leading manufacturers including Doosan, Citizen and Nakamura. In fact, new equipment from the latter two suppliers made up a significant part of HPC’s recent investments with two M32-VIII sliding head lathes from Citizen and three Nakamura WT150 multitasking machines purchased from UK agent ETG. 

But it wasn’t just machine tools that benefitted from HPC Services’ investment plans. Fusion 360 CAD/CAM software from Autodesk has been introduced to provide flexible 3D CAD, integrated CAD/CAM, 3D simulation and generative design capabilities.

“Fusion 360 is a very powerful, versatile software package, but from a practical perspective, one of the biggest benefits for us is that it means we can program straight from a CAD model which has been a gamechanger in terms of productivity and efficiency,” Mr Bennett affirms.

Quality assurance  

The rest of the recent investment package at HPC was no less wisely spent on arguably perhaps the most important area of all – quality assurance. This comprised: a Keyence IM800 image dimension measurement system; a ViciVision M306 Techno cylindrical part measurement system; and Prolink quality control and process monitoring software which combine to form a formidable all-encompassing quality assurance powerhouse. ViciVision and Prolink (sister company to OGP) are divisions of the Carfulan Group located in Derbyshire. 

“We were looking for a system that would speed up and improve our inspection department,” John Bennett explains. “The Keyence system is extremely user-friendly and we are able to get the exact same results regardless of the operator. The addition of the Prolink software allows us to create inspection reports that are automatically toleranced and numbered from the drawing. This removes a lot of operator error and links to all of our existing measurement equipment to fill in detailed reports.

“In the modern manufacturing industry, Statistical Process Control (SPC) is no longer a formality but an essential for achieving operational excellence, demanding robust solutions that seamlessly integrate with existing infrastructure and empower informed decision-making,” he continues.

“After evaluating the UK supplier base, we decided to invest in Prolink software, to allow us to take in data from our Vici shaft measuring machine, Keyence and other CMMs seamlessly. Prolink’s QC Calc software offered us an intuitive, scalable and integrated software solution that empowered us with real-time data monitoring, automated reporting to understand and improve our product quality.

“Part of the Prolink package purchased was the Discus Ballooning software,” he adds. “This allows us to significantly reduce our labour efforts required in producing FAI and PPAP reports. Discus enables users to efficiently identify the detailed characteristics of a part model or drawing, derive the specific measurement requirements, and automate the generation of inspection plans by capturing images, drawings and specifications of the product.

“Discus’ modular software solutions greatly reduce our labour effort for a variety of inspection plans, including AS9100, TS16949, and Part 820 quality. It supports all customer formats, exporting to Excel and custom templates. The software solutions help us as a manufacturer achieve quality and efficiency gains giving our customer the knowledge that our production process is stable.  

“The main driver behind the investment in inspection equipment was that our customers began asking us for reports and data that we struggled to provide using traditional methods. Now, we can receive a full inspection report in a matter of seconds, rather than days.

“And the bottom line underpinning all our investments – we wanted to reduce our scrap levels and setting times and pass this cost saving onto our customers. Now, we are confident they receive the correct size parts, right first time, and at a much lower cost.”

Forecasting future demand 

It’s clear that continuous investment is in HPC Services’ DNA. Mr Bennett reports that investment in new machinery is usually undertaken on an annual basis. Decisions regarding what to buy specifically is guided largely by the type of parts customers are requesting. Regular dialog is held with clients to provide valuable input into what future demand is likely to look like and investments are tailored accordingly.

Like many precision subcontracting engineering companies, HPC serves a wide variety of market sectors. Some of the most prominent include rail, fire suppression systems, printing and date coding machinery, kitchen taps and bathroom equipment, scientific devices and camera equipment.

Another investment worth its weight in gold – and John Bennett does see it as such – is the company’s membership of the BTMA: “Access to the latest information on technology and general information relating to the turned part industry is extremely useful,” he enthuses. “Membership also provides excellent networking opportunities and assists in building relationships as well as demonstrating our commitment to the British turned part industry.”

Never a company to stand still, currently HPC is in the process of setting up a prototype and development facility nearby to complement its existing capability. In addition, the business is looking at expanding its quality department even further with the addition of the latest Keyence XM-5000 Portable CMM.

HPC Services
www.slidinghead.com