SUBCONTRACTING MEDICAL
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From strength to strength
An ethos of excellence is what Tridan Engineering believes has kept it
Solutions
Report
strong over the last few years as it continues to streamline its
Simon Lott
processes and invest in people and plant, but how exactly has
this been achieved?
A
mongst the disruption in the manufacturing industry of expertise it has needed to achieve to compete in the especially
over the past 18 months, the Clacton-on-Sea demanding medical and aerospace industries has served it
subcontractor has steadily expanded its business particularly well across all areas of business. As an unwritten rule, the
through a commitment to continuous improvement and company maintains its workload in a diverse range of industries but
value added services. in terms of machining precision and quality, the medical sector
Central to this has been the company’s willingness to take on presents some of the largest challenges.
greater responsibility for customer components as companies
seek to outsource larger sections of their process chains, meaning
Built on trust
that, along with its consistent quality and delivery performance, it As an example, Tridan supplies on average 2,000 parts per month
has been able to maintain a high level of production throughout to a US customer producing blood diagnostic and analysis
the downturn. equipment, ranging from desktop to room size machines. The
When you add to this that the performance required by prime and largest and most sophisticated of these fully automated machines
first tier customers is constantly rising, Tridan has found that the level can perform a complete battery of tests on up to 100 samples per
hour and requires a large variety of mechanical parts such as
rotators, discs and gears. Tridan is responsible for most of the
mechanical elements of the machines, with part sizes varying from
3mm long pins to one-off 3m long bases cast at sister company
Stone Foundries.
These components are supplied on a weekly basis straight to the
production line, with Tridan taking on full responsibility for quality and
inspection. Due to the rapid turnaround required of orders, it also
provides a stockholding service for the customer, which has the dual
benefit of quick availability as well as ensuring that quality
procedures are not rushed to meet demand.
Sales director Michael Lynch explains: “When you take away the
machining side of it, the remainder of the process is very
demanding. At the real high end we are producing bore sizes that arrange including alochrome, anodising, passivation and electro-
may be down to 2-3µm diameter and some orders demand we have polishing. That goes from plastics all the way through to very tough
a critical inspection report done for every component which can be stainless steels and aluminium castings, both sand and investment.”
anything up to a dozen different dimensions checked on our CMM,
with each one labelled and fully traceable – very much along the
Experience is everything
lines of our aerospace procedures. Working in both these sectors One further aspect of its value added offering is that through its
has helped us to promote a culture of quality throughout the shopfloor expertise, Tridan is often able to save customers money by
company. We have 58 people onsite and as far as we’re concerned, evaluating the design of their components for manufacture. As Mr
that means we have 58 quality inspectors. Lynch explains: “Something that began in the early days of our
“We have to be particularly thorough on the aesthetic side of the medical work and has spread throughout the business is that we can
medical business,” he adds. “There can be no print marks or look at elements of designs, such as the radii of corners, hole sizes
blemishes and we work to a very high calibre specification. The or undercuts and have our production engineers talk to the designers
quality of deburring is also crucial. We have to inspect parts under at the front end. Some designers will now even send drawings to us
four or five times magnification to make absolutely sure there are no before they send them to their own purchasing team so they can be
rough edges as some parts that go into the manufacture of testing sure it’s practical to make parts before the designs are released.”
equipment have a very high voltage going through them and any Managing director Paul Hawkins adds: “On one product, we took
edges or burrs could cause an adverse reaction. Once our out about 25% of the unit price, which was considerable as it was a
inspection has passed them and they’re as near to perfect as we can high end, high usage part. We always promote the fact we offer
get, they are then washed and sent for any treatments. design for manufacture services and sometimes even if the customer
“Of those 2,000 parts, there are probably 90 different components doesn’t request it, we can suggest areas for improvement. It’s good
and there are a whole range of surface treatments that we have to practice because we want to retain the work and do the best job
possible. If it saves us money in the bargain, it’s a win-win scenario.”
Being busy throughout 2009 has also meant that the company has
been able to continue to invest, increasing its workforce by 7% and
putting £500,000 into new equipment, including a new Mazak CNC
turning centre with mill/turn capabilities, which is now being used to
machine complex medical components complete in one hit.
Two further machines have also been purchased recently and
have been operational since September, namely a Mazak VTC-
200C2, which will increase capacity to support its small to medium
volume markets; and an XYZ 710 vertical machine with integrated
fourth axis, to service an increasing one-off and small batch demand
with quick turnaround times. At the same time, Tridan also took the
opportunity to upgrade its CAD/CAM software to accommodate the
wide variety of models coming in from customers.
While the thorough nature of its quality and traceability processes
in machining and inspection, and the ability to offer value added
services has created opportunities for the business, Mr Hawkins also
attributes its performance to the ongoing work performed by its
dedicated Lean team as well as the knowledge gained through
accreditations in the aerospace arena.
With quality standards closely comparable to those required in the
medical sector, he reports that Tridan is now aiming for a bronze
SC21 award to take its Lean abilities to the next level. The company
is also on target for ISO14001 accreditation as Mr Hawkins believes
the blue chips will factor this into their procurement requirements
within the next few years. With the aim of reaching both these
achievements within the next year, regular staff training and ongoing
performance analysis, he claims that the company is currently
running at 99.8% on time delivery and quality on all orders, although
areas for improvement are still being identified.
> TRIDAN ENGINEERING
www.tridan.co.uk
32 March 2010 • Production Engineering Solutions
www.pesmag.co.uk
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