MACHINING Happy New Year
Solutions Report Dave Tudor
fter 34 years service with Matsuura, previous managing director John Jones decided to retire and move onto pastures new. He was replaced at the beginning of 2010 by Roger Howkins – himself an experienced campaigner with 14 years service with the company spanning a number of roles from applications engineering to European management positions. Mr Howkins believes the experience gained from working in other roles stands him in good stead for success at the helm of Matsuura UK. “Essentially we’re a sales and support company and at senior director level there’s a wealth of practical engineering experience to draw upon,” he says. “I spent many years in customer facing roles learning the ropes and senior director Dave Edwards has a similar background with 24 years experience at Matsuura. “This ‘hands-on’ approach is evident right through the company.
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We can empathise totally with the challenges our support engineers and customers face on a daily basis because we’ve been there and I think as a team, this enables us to provide an excellent service to our customers.”
Multi-purpose premises
In terms of its product portfolio, Matsuura manufactures a wide range of multi-axis horizontal and vertical machining centres that can be customised as required to suit specific applications and many of these can be seen in the flesh at the Coalville showroom. This isn’t the whole story however because Matsuura has agency agreements in place with a number of global machine tool companies including Gruppo Parpas (gantry style machines,
It’s been a pretty hectic year so far for Matsuura Machinery. As well as parent company Matsuura Japan celebrating its 75th
the Coalville-based UK operation has appointed a new managing director and bagged a number of high profile orders.
horizontal borers and travelling column, fixed bed machines), Muratec Murata (turning centres), Niigata (large horizontal machining centres) SNK (large, gantry style 5-axis); and a recent addition to the portfolio – Toshulin (large VTL and turning centres). On the tooling side, Matsuura endorses and markets products from Big Daishowa and Mizoguchi.
Matsuura’s Coalville facility isn’t merely a shop window for its range of machining centres however. As well as being the European hub for Matsuura spare parts it also has its own temperature- controlled spindle rebuild and refurbishment centre with Class 1000 clean room capability serving Matsuura machines across Europe. The company guarantees that for any Matsuura machine running in Europe, there will be a spare spindle, in stock, at Coalville – including older models that are no longer manufactured – that can be shipped to the customer within 24 hours.
A highly skilled engineering department is also able to retrofit and customise machines to suit customer requirements. This could be anything from fixturing, probes or pallet changers through to coolant systems, hydraulics, swarf management systems or bespoke guarding.
Making inroads
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Matsuura’s agency agreements are pretty longstanding and established, but the company is always receptive to new partnerships to gain access to new markets – the Gruppo Parpas agency for example was set-up during MACH 2008. Matsuura’s latest partnership is with Toshulin – a prestigious, high quality vertical turning lathe manufacturer based in the Czech Republic. Product table diameters range from 800mm diameter to 5m and as with all agency agreements, Matsuura’s applications and service engineers have undertaken intensive product training courses to become familiar with the products on offer. Along with its other principals, Toshulin
representatives were on hand on the Matsuura stand at
MACH this year. As Mr Howkins explains, this was a change of tactics for Matsuura when compared to previous years. “We decided at MACH 2010 to focus on our entire product range rather than purely Matsuura manufactured products,” he reveals. “It was a decision that paid off because the show produced a number of positive leads for us – many of which were from new customers in new markets. I think the emphasis this year was on visitor quality rather than quantity – there’s a very good chance that some of the enquiries from MACH will develop into firm orders.”
In the pipeline
As a direct response to customer feedback, summer 2010 will see enhancements made to Matsuura’s MAM 72 35V 5-axis, 32 pallet vertical machining centre. Mr Howkins is keen to emphasise that while no earth shattering changes have been made to the design of what is already a highly successful model, at no extra cost, customers will see a number of productivity enhancing ‘tweaks’. “We’ve basically made the machine faster,” he affirms. “A software upgrade has resulted in better drive response times and rapids have been increased from 40m/minute to 60m/mimute. In addition, we’ve improved the
A software upgrade has resulted in better drive response times and rapids have been increased from 40m/minute to 60m/mimute
anniversary,
Steady progress
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www.pesmag.co.uk 12 August 2010 • Production Engineering Solutions
Part of what Victor Europe is calling its Multiple-X Evolution of advanced CNC machine tools, the recently launched Victor Vcenter-X300 VMC, with a swivel head spindle and innovative off centre rotary table, offers simultaneous 5-axis machining on large parts of up to 1,100mm in diameter, and 4-axis machining of parts up to 3,000mm long. As Victor produces over 1,000 tons of Meehanite castings per month, both for use on its own wide range of machine tools and for export to Japan, the Vcenter-X300 has a rigid machine structure made entirely from this highly stable material. Minimising the potential for vibration, three robust, linear guides support the new machine’s heavy traversing column, helping to provide a smooth movement along its X-axis.
Large diameter hollow
ballscrews provide high rigidity and a quick machine response, whilst coolant circulating through the ballscrews reduces the potential for heat build-up and further improves machining accuracy.
A high precision rotary table is embedded inside the machine’s 3.5m long fixed table and the Vcenter-X300 is equipped with a swivel head located on its traversing column, enabling the simultaneous 5-axis machining of large diameter parts. With a coupling included, the Vcenter- X300’s swivel milling head (B-axis) with built-in
26kW/12,000rpm spindle can be clamped in 1° increments which helps to fully utilise the machine’s spindle motor output for multi-face machining and drilling routines. An advanced oil/air lubrication system with efficient filtration is used for the machine’s high quality spindle bearings.
Also enhancing rigidity, an off
centre rotary pallet design (C- axis) is located on the Vcenter-X300’s table whilst the machines’ Y-axis travel of 700mm enables the accurate machining of large parts of up to 1,100mm in diameter. A powerful torque motor drives the machine’s 630mm rotary table at rotational speeds of up to 100rpm, guaranteeing high indexing accuracy. Additionally, a precise angular encoder is included as standard equipment.
A generous, maximum table load of 3,000kg means that heavy workpieces can be accommodated and a BT- 40/SK-40 tooling system facilitates high speed machining of up to 12,000rpm. An HSK- A63 tooling system is also available as an option. Whilst the flexible Vcenter- X300 is ideally suitable for the machining of long parts, with the machine’s central partition guard installed it can also be
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