Partnerships for improved production

Seco Tools is adopting a new approach that solves customers’ machining challenges through an integrated and holistic process with its partners.

Ed Hill visited its UK headquarters to find out more.

‘Many hands make light work’ so they say, and this idea seems to be one that Seco Tools (UK) is embracing wholeheartedly when it comes to meeting the demands of advanced engineering and manufacturing industries – particularly in the aerospace and medical sectors.

At the cutting tool manufacturer’s UK facility in Alcester, Warwickshire, the company is creating what it describes as an ‘Innovation Hub’ that not only draws on its own engineering know-how and resources, but is also opening its doors to encourage other industry stakeholders to work together to solve customers’ engineering and process challenges.

This new initiative is a substantial change of direction for the cutting tool supplier. Although design, development and pricing of custom tools will remain at its UK headquarters, production of such tools has been transferred to France. This is so machining and factory resources once employed for cutting tool manufacturing can be applied to solving new projects where customers need substantial efficiency improvements for components manufactured in the supply chain.

Mike Fleming, strategic marketing, products and services manager, at Seco Tools (UK) explains: “We are creating an environment where we and our partners can come together to collaborate on best-in-class machining processes and also on R&D, training and education. We want the Innovation Hub to be a co-owned environment where our partners are equal members in this venture. Like us they can access the facilities whenever they need to, so we all work together using our particular knowledge and strengths to ultimately benefit our customers.”

The necessity for this approach comes predominately from customers according to Dave Magnall, innovation partnership manager at Seco Tools (UK) who is part of the team driving this new initiative.

“In many ways we are responding to industry demands,” he says. “Many OEMs don’t want small incremental improvements of 10-20% to production from their suppliers anymore – they want improvements of 50, even 70%.

“With the best will in the world you can’t get a 70% process improvement just by redesigning a cutting tool. You have to draw on a network of partnerships made up of CAD/CAM developers, machine tool builders, coolant suppliers, workholding and metrology specialists to work together to solve a customer’s problem.”

The foundations for this collaborative approach to be not only a cutting tool supplier but also a combined consultancy service has been built from Seco’s experience staging its Inspiration Through Innovation (ITI) event each year.

Launched in 2014 as an alternative to the traditional open house, the two-day gathering is not only a showcase for Seco’s cutting tools but also brings together machine tool manufacturers, workholding, metrology, CAD/CAM and coolant companies, along with machining demonstrations, talks and seminars, to offer visitors industry insights, best practice and networking benefits.

Focus on aerospace

This year’s Inspiration Through Innovation, being held from 9-10 October in many ways encapsulates the Innovation Hub concept by focusing on one sector (aerospace) rather than the broader precision engineering supply chain.

Seco has chosen aerospace not only because this is a sector where it has extensive experience and sales, but also because it is a high-end engineering industry that faces large order backlogs and significant operational and economic pressures, meaning suppliers have to substantially increase production speeds and reduce manufacturing costs.

The industry is also adopting disruptive manufacturing technologies such as, digitalisation (Industry 4.0), advanced alloy and composite material processing and additive manufacturing, and having to tackle environmental concerns, resulting in the search for more fuel-efficient aircraft and ecological power sources such as electrification.

“For ITI this year we felt it was natural that we focus on aerospace,” Mr Fleming says. “Every machining demonstration will be a component related to the sector. For example, we have projects featuring turbine blisk and disc manufacturing from difficult-to-machine materials, such as titanium, Inconel and Heat Resistant Super Alloys (HRSAs). We have chosen parts, materials and processes that we think are most applicable and worked with partners who we felt could make the best contribution to those demonstrations. They are all aerospace parts being made by the best technology available, so customers can see the ideal solution.”

Some of the other demos include: turbine blade repair using additive and subtractive processes, machining an A350 fuel connector, a titanium structural part, an aero-engine combustion chamber and machining carbon fibre (CFRP) seat parts using robotics.

Around 30 technical partners will be taking part including well-known machine tool brands – with their machines working on site, CAD/CAM and metrology experts, as well as workholding and cutting fluid suppliers.

“It’s a live event so machining will be going on all the time,” Mr Fleming adds. “Of course, we bear a lot of the cost but we also expect our partners to invest in the event too and encourage them to invite their customers along. We want our partners to benefit from seeing our customers and other partners’ customers so we all contribute in some way and feel we have benefitted from it.”

Industry insight

Running alongside the machining demonstrations there will be a number of seminars delivered by recognised industry-experts related to the projects demonstrated on the shopfloor.

These include: presentations from Rolls-Royce on manufacturing turbines; Siemens on material solutions and additive manufacturing; the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) on blisk demand and Renishaw on Industry 4.0 and utilising machining and metrology data.

“Industry 4.0 is a bit of a buzzword but there is an issue in the industry about integration when it comes to the use of data. Unless we all share and utilise it effectively we won’t get the full value from it,” Dave Magnall states.

Inspiration Through Innovation will also be a far more international event with attendees expected from not just the UK but also Europe, Asia and the US.

And the collaboration that epitomises ITI is intended to be the springboard for the Innovation Hub and year-round collaboration with Seco’s partners to offer practical and production ready manufacturing solutions.

“People ask is this sort of work not being done by the likes of the AMRC or MTC already, but we are coming at it from a much higher Technology Readiness Level (TRL),” Mr Magnall explains. “These are improvements that customers can implement the next day or the next month rather than five to ten years down the line on projects that need solving immediately. We are much closer to manufacturing subcontractors so what we do complements the type of R&D that they do.”

Making the pledge

In fact, Inspiration Through Innovation and the Innovation Hub are all part of an ongoing commitment that Seco calls its T50 pledge. This aims to reduce customers’ costs or process times by 50% and to use innovative technologies and training to achieve it.

Of course, to achieve those kinds of advances, Seco’s partners have to buy into this concept of collaboration, so what has been their response?

“The technical partners get it right away because they are of a similar mind,” Mr Magnall asserts. We soon know which companies support the idea because they are the ones that start to push us too and are happy to invest either money or equipment.”

Essentially the Innovation Hub and its related initiatives are about garnering skills and generating new revenue streams that benefit everyone involved, and solve customers’ technical challenges.

Mr Fleming concludes: “Our ultimate aim is to create a space where like-minded people can come together to work on projects permanently that benefit the whole industry. It means we all work towards the same goal which is how we can make the process more efficient for the customer.

“If we can develop tooling, machine tools, workholding, lubricant and software solutions that work in harmony that becomes a unique offer and we can achieve some truly game changing developments and opportunities.”

To register for Inspiration Through Innovation visit www.secotools.com/iti2019

Seco Tools (UK) www.secotools.com