Renowned for its range of CNC bar feeders, Milton Keynes-based Hydrafeed had to show its resourcefulness during the recent economic downturn. One area where it has achieved significant levels of success is through its subcontracting operations, which is emerging as a major growth area. Solutions reports.

Manufacturing almost all of the components for its bar feeders in-house, Hydrafeed has always had manufacturing capacity at its disposal and has used excess capacity in the past to provide a localised subcontract service. However, when the downturn in orders for new machine tools, and the associated bar feed units, from its principle OEM customers started to bite, recent investment in this machining capacity provided an opportunity, rather than a problem, to Hydrafeed’s management.

Switching capacity to offer more subcontract work has seen Hydrafeed develop regular business machining and fabricating components for customers across industry sectors, including aerospace, defence, automotive, medical, and the retail point of sale environment. Producing batches from one-off up to hundreds, it provides a flexible service and what it describes as Faxban and Kanban supply solutions to those customers requiring that level of service.

With a shopfloor staff of 44 skilled and experienced people Hydrafeed knew it had the resources to provide a high quality subcontract service for small to medium sized batch production, making use of its own bar feed products to allow unmanned running on the turning section through the night. However, it also recognised that it was taking a leap into an extremely competitive, and at the time difficult, marketplace.

Key appointment

To address this Hydrafeed appointed Daren Drew as production manager with the task of reducing manufacturing costs and devising processes that would make best use of the existing capacity and to investigate further investments. One of his first tasks was to review cutting tool spend. “When I arrived we had a mix of an open stores system and consignment stock for cutting tools,” explains Mr Drew. “This posed two major problems – one of stock control and one of cost. We never knew who was using what and why. Operators would often take more inserts than they needed and compounding the issue was the fact that the incumbent cutting tool supplier insisted on a minimum order level of 10 inserts of any one type.

As this was being investigated a machining problem gave Mr Drew the opportunity to call in alternative cutting tool suppliers and the first to respond was WNT (UK), in the shape of technical sales engineer Duncan Slough. “Duncan responded quickly with a workable solution to our problem and we then got talking about other aspects of our tooling requirements. The result of which we are now seeing considerable savings in our monthly tooling costs.”

One of the key elements of this was the installation of a WNT Tool-o-Mat tool vending system. This unit has handed back control of tool stocks to Hydrafeed, with each operator having a personal key with which to vend tools and inserts. The system then generates reports at a frequency dictated by the customer that show tool usage. “In the very early days I was getting a daily printout of what tools had been vended and who was taking them,” Mr Drew reveals. “We now have these reports emailed to me and the accounts department on a less frequent basis as we are becoming familiar with trends.

“It has quickly returned control and accountability to us and is definitely contributing to the downward trend in our tooling costs,” he adds. “It is also encouraging that the guys on the shopfloor are positive about its introduction as well, as they can access tools when they need them, and stock is always available. Therefore, they do not have to chase me to place urgent orders for tools, which saves me valuable time, allowing me to get on with the job of managing.”

On report

The reporting used by Hydrafeed is relatively straightforward, showing tools used, when they were issued and to whom. As Hydrafeed becomes familiar with this way of working, it can then expand the reporting capability of the Tool-o-Mat unit to provide more detailed information such as which job a tool was issued for. This will then allow greater accountability and precise tool costs for particular components, allowing more accurate quotes to be created when work repeats itself.

As a result of this initial work, and the availability of technical and logistics support provided by WNT (UK), Hydrafeed has signed a preferred supplier agreement with WNT for it to provide all of its requirements for key areas such as HSS drilling and milling; solid carbide drilling and milling; indexable insert products; and tapping and threading products, with WNT guaranteeing to achieve 100% delivery performance and achieve an ‘A’ rating on Hydrafeed’s quality metrics.

“The changes we are making are for the good of our business and that of our customers,” Mr Drew concludes. “We are aware that our customers can request things on extremely short leadtimes, so it is reassuring to know that tools are available, either in the Tool-o-Mat machine or, next day from WNT. This takes a huge weight off my shoulders allowing me to plan the business rather than chasing tool suppliers and the end result is that Hydrafeed becomes a more competitive and sustainable business able to provide a better service to our customers.”

WNT
www.wnt.com

More than bar feeds

Hydrafeed has also expanded its own range of products beyond its traditional bar feed market. For example, its Rota-Rack parts accumulator system takes the finished components from a lathe in a secure and orderly fashion and ensures that even during lights out, unmanned, operation parts are not damaged as they are parted-off from the barstock that is being fed by one of its bar feeds. Deburring and polishing is also another area of expansion, with abrasive belt machines and barrel deburring and polishing machines in its portfolio of machines.

Hydrafeed
www.hydrafeed.co.uk