PR2 Engineering says it distinguishes itself from its competitors by offering exceptional quality and reliability. From its factory in Kirkcaldy the company supplies low volume, high quality, difficult to manufacture turned parts to blue chip customers in the oil and gas, petrochemical, defence, nuclear, and space industries. Paul Halliwell is one of four directors running the company: ““When we started the business seven years ago, we made a significant investment in equipment and premises. We now have five Mori Seiki machines including the NLX2500MC machine recently purchased at the WorldSkills 2011 event.” With a number of OEMs making up part of its customer base, customer’s often want to audit PR2’s facility prior to placing firm orders, so the company decided to opt for a 6,500ft² unit from the outset to allow for
expansion. On the machine tool front, the emphasis was centred squarely on quality and functionality. “PR2 Engineering’s customers expect certain standards from their suppliers and reliability is of paramount importance,” Mr Halliwell explains. “We’re a 24/7 operation so we can’t make any compromises on delivery and performance if we want to remain successful. “Our plan is to invest continuously over the next 5 years,” he continues, “and the NLX2500MC was purchased to address a bottleneck in production for our oil and gas and petrochemical products, where demand has grown rapidly. We carry out a thorough evaluation process prior to actually making a purchase and this has to take future requirements into consideration as well as current capacity. Selecting the Mori Seiki machine therefore was not a decision we took lightly. It simply ticked all the right boxes for us.”
In reality, sticking with Mori Seiki was a relatively simple decision for the directors who have more than 80 years of CNC experience between them. Mr Halliwell comments: “The directors have worked on many different machines over the years and in our opinion, Mori Seiki is top of the list for reliability, rigidity and service. The company has always supported Scotland well and I can only say that, in our experience, the service is exceptional. We cut difficult high temperature alloys such as Haynes 230 and Hastelloy X, and the rigidity and power of the NLX2500MC, with its built-in motors on the turret and spindle and box construction, enable us to cut these materials with no problems. We know that less rigid machines would definitely struggle with the type of work we are doing.”
An added advantage for PR2 Engineering is the common programming and set-up technology that the company can use across all its Mori Seiki machines, which saves both time and costs. “Consistency and repeatability are key elements in our business as is the durability of the machines we use,” Mr Halliwell concludes. “We need our machines to still be accurate and reliable in ten years’ time and Mori Seiki’s machines fit the bill.”
On leaving university Sam Hignett had no difficulty deciding what to do next. In fact, he was already well on his way to becoming a successful entrepreneur and businessman.
A decade later he is co- owner of the Jota Group along with Simon Dolan and Sam Hancock, and team principal of Jota Sport.
Jota Sport specialises in the preparation, management and running of professional motorsport teams in major championships and series’. As official partner team to Aston
Martin Racing it represents the famous marque at the highest levels of international sports car racing. Jota Sport also looks after the racing programmes of Mazda Motors UK, running cars developed and built by Jota Design. Since 2000 Jota-prepared racing cars have competed five times at Le Mans, and taken podium places across five seasons of the Le Mans series as well as in several American Le Mans series events.
“I started Jota because I was racing at the time and decided, rightly or wrongly, that I could do a better job if my sponsors paid me directly and I ran the team, instead of them paying for me to drive with another team,” recalls Mr Hignett. However, despite his success as a professional racing driver, he says it was not too difficult a decision to quit driving in 2005 to concentrate on growing the Jota Group, which also includes a specialist design business and freight carrier Jota Aviation based at London Southend airport.
Mazda and Aston Martin have different operational criteria. Mazda commissioned Jota Sport to design, build and prepare a modified version of the MX-5 road car to compete in the 2011 British Endurance Championship. Jota Sport AMR on the other hand, runs an Aston Martin V6 Vantage that it has adapted to GT2 specification and races in the GTE category of the five round Le Mans series and the Le Mans 24 Hours with support from the manufacturer. However, both racing teams are subject to ongoing development that demands an engineering resource capable
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