Subcontractor Filters Out Production Benefits
05 May 2009
Founded by Mr Valmiki Ravani Sinanan in 1968, VRS Precision Engineering Ltd recently celebrated its 40th anniversary. The company manufactures high precision components for the aerospace, medical, marine, shop fitting, filtration and construction industries.
Continually investing in its staff and capitol equipment to achieve exemplary quality to satisfy customer demands, VRS now uses 21 machine tools from Matsuura, Makino, Daewoo and Mori-Seiki.
In 2006, VRS procured a Matsuura 800VG11 and a Matsuura 1000VG vertical machining centre. Moving to technology such as through spindle coolant and high speed machining that generates high levels of swarf, smoke and coolant mist; the ISO: 9001 company was advised by Matsuura to invest in filtration systems for the machines. The machine tool manufacturer suggested systems from ACS and soon a relationship was started.
ACS seamlessly fitted colour coded filtration systems to the Matsuura machines as VRS Production Manager, Mr Rod Bradley comments: “The machines fitted straight into our production operation and made an impact. However, it was the filtration systems that made the impact with our staff. As any machinist working on a modern CNC will find, with ever increasing speeds and feeds combined with through or high pressure coolant, the machine has to be left a minute or two for the fumes to settle before removing the part from the work envelope. The ACS systems immediately changed this.”
The impact of the ACS OMF1000 systems fitted to the Matsuura machines meant that additional system followed in April, May and June 2008 to include the company’s series of new Doosan Puma and Lynx machine tools.
In January 2009 a further three units were fitted bringing the total to 12 systems installed. With another three systems to be fitted on its larger CNC machine tools, VRS is close to completing the plant wide installation of the mist filtration units.
VRS Health & Safety and Operations Manager, Amber Cole states: “The company has continually noticed an improvement in air quality and workshop and machine tool cleanliness as each system has been installed. The OMF1000 systems are virtually maintenance free and they have a gauge that notifies you when a filter change is needed. However, we have had some systems for three years and the annual LEV have highlighted that these units still haven’t required a filter change.”
Air quality and employee health & safety has obviously been the main drivers behind the installation process, however this is not the only benefit to VRS. As Mr Bradley says: “The OMF1000 media filtration systems have improved cycle times. We often produce batches between 50 and 250 and during each component cycle the machine door has to be opened to remove swarf from the machining area. Previously an operator had to wait a minute or two for the mist to settle before opening the door to the work envelope. This was conducted a couple of times for each cycle, resulting in anything up to 5 minutes lost waiting for the mist to settle. This break is now a thing of the past with the ACS systems.”