Capitalising on the aerospace sector

Dawnlough Precision started out as a small toolmaking business servicing the electrical and medical engineering sectors in the west of Ireland.

When Brian McKeon took over the business from his father 12 years ago, plans were put in place to build up the medical device side of the business. Today, with that side of Dawnlough Precision remaining strong, attention has turned more to the growing demand for aerospace manufacturing in the Republic of Ireland.

When Mr McKeon joined the business in 2005 there were just eight employees and one CNC machine tool, now the company has relocated to what will be a 50,000ft² facility – once the planned extension is complete in 2018.

Currently the company has a capacity list of over 30 CNC machine tools, including multiple 4- and 5-axis, pallet loaded machining centres. Employee numbers stand at 75 of which 32 are designated as programmers as Dawnlough’s machine setters/operators program everything at the machine using floating licenses of SolidCAM software.

Operating in this way adds responsibility to individuals and also removes what Mr McKeon describes as the disconnect between a CAM programmer sitting in an office and the shopfloor. While programming is handled on the shopfloor, Dawnlough has also invested heavily in a design capability, allowing it to work with customers, providing turnkey design solutions for the medical and tooling side of the business and the ability to work with aerospace customers by offering design for manufacturing advice on current projects.

Success with seats

The move into aerospace started initially with Galway-based Dawnlough acting as a third-tier supplier machining components for an order for 2,000 premium aircraft seats. This led to it being added to an approved vendor list, which led onto more work in the aircraft seating sector.

“This business grew quickly, but we soon faced price pressure from competitors in low cost economies,” says Mr McKeon. “We therefore took the decision to look at other areas of the aerospace sector that involved higher precision, such as flight critical components. An opportunity to open a dialogue with Bombardier allowed us to work directly with them on the machining of flap actuation parts and other wing assembly components as well as some engine mounts.

“Thanks to our excellent on-time delivery and quality record in this early period, Bombardier then sponsored us to go for SC21 Bronze, which we achieved in 2016. Our next target is to add the Silver award in 2018 as we are already achieving and exceeding the required targets for that. We are also one of only two companies in the Republic of Ireland with accreditation for aerospace assemblies.”

The SC21 award is in addition to Dawnlough’s existing accreditations having gained ISO9001:2008 and ISO 13485 and AS9100C, for quality management, the latter being aerospace specific. To boost its presence in the aerospace market Dawnlough joined ADS, the trade organisation for companies in the UK aerospace, defence, security and space sectors. This has helped to raise its profile outside of Ireland and with the trend for more work to be on-shored again from the low-cost economies, the potential for increasing the amount of high precision, high skilled work in difficult to machine materials is increasing.

To further raise the profile of the growing capability for aerospace machining in Ireland, Dawnlough is a founder member of Emerald Aerospace, a consortium of like-minded businesses that is promoting its expertise to a wider audience.

Unlike other aerospace alliances, Emerald Aerospace will work as the point of contact for the member companies, with a business development manager seeking out new opportunities, with the members then deciding who, between them, is best placed to manage the contract. The end customer will then have just one point of contact for orders and invoicing, simplifying the process and bringing added benefits of a wider range of manufacturing processes to bear.

“The medical device side of the business is at its peak and growth in that area will be steady. In order to grow at the rate that we are targeting, we will focus our forward plans on the aerospace sector. Our skills set is complimentary as aerospace calls on similar qualities in terms of precision and consistency as the medical device sector,” Mr McKeon continues.

“Our ambition is once the extension is complete during 2018 is to then increase the number of skilled, time-served toolmakers. Total employment should be around 120 people, with an increased use of automation to complement our existing pallet loading/job queuing systems we already have in place.”

Cutting edge vending

In preparation for this growth, Dawnlough is working with its long-term tooling supplier WNT. The speed of growth meant that tooling costs increased, so WNT vending systems have been introduced to manage tool usage with detailed reports generated to highlight what tools have been used on what jobs, by specific operators.

Working with WNT’s applications sales engineer, Shane O’Donnell and technical sales engineer Jerry Warren, Dawnlough is developing machining processes to get cutting tools operating at their maximum capability. As business develops, any new projects are looked at as a matter of course in order to minimise cycle times, extend tool life and, manage tooling costs.

“Job costing is a vital element of our ongoing business and while we have always been able to be specific on machining and time, tooling was often a grey area. With the support from WNT and the reporting that we can access from the vending machines, we are now able to break down tooling costs very specifically, with any issues being flagged up immediately.

“In business it is the little things that make a difference and the support we get from WNT in terms of the consignment stock in the vendors, next day delivery on the 20% of tooling that we don’t hold, the regrind service, and the technical support, all add up for us.”

DAWNLOUGH PRECISION www.dawnlough.com/

WNT www.wnt.com