engineering apprenticeship with a valve manufacturing company.
I remember it well – the entire first year was off the job training which involved attending a local college with a well-equipped – although somewhat basic on reflection – machine shop containing a variety of horizontal and vertical milling machines, lathes, shapers and drills. Much of that year was spent making projects that
hen I left school in
1981, I started a four year
encompassed the various engineering disciplines mentioned above plus copious amounts of hand filing to make things ‘fit’. We made engineering try squares, vices and my particular favourite, a scribing block. Friday afternoons were particularly ‘memorable’ – that was the time we all opened our log books, sharpened a pencil and documented all the work we’d done that week ready for the EITB man to review at the end of the year. It was a laborious but necessary part of the training and provided a concise record of what we’d achieved in terms of skills and development.
So why am I harping on about
this? Well a couple of weeks ago I visited tooling specialist Guhring’s manufacturing plants in Germany (see pages 32-34). Part of the visit involved a tour around the company’s apprentice training school which was a real trip down memory lane for me. Guhring employs around 70 apprentices a year and safeguarding the company’s future via effective skills transfer is high on the priority list.
At the time of my visit, 52 young people (including five girls) were working in the training school on various
Over 80 visitors representing 50 companies from the UK, the Republic of Ireland and Scandinavia were welcomed at Hurco Europe’s traditional December open house. According to managing
director, Dave Waghorn, it was by far the best attendance ever and gave a boost to the second month of the company’s new financial year, which had already started well with 37 orders placed in November 2011. One was a VMX30t 3-axis machining centre to Cobra Seats, Telford – a specialist manufacturer of racing car seats, which customised one of its products with Hurco’s logo for display at the open house. Particularly noteworthy was Hurco’s turnover last year, which was 50% up on 2009/10 and exceeded that of the previous best year – 2008 – by 25%. Lathe sales doubled to account for 20% of new machine orders. Particularly pleasing was that 44% of business was with new users of Hurco machines. Mr Waghorn commented: “Our buoyant sales allowed us to employ a further seven staff across the company last year, mainly in technical support, service and spares. A further consequence of the high level
projects. The apprenticeship scheme comprises not only mechanical engineering, but also mechatronics, pneumatics and hydraulics. Guhring also manufactures its own CNC grinders and the apprentices often make parts and sub- assemblies that are used in these machines.
Germany as a nation places its engineers in the highest esteem and so it’s not surprising that a pioneering, innovative company like Guhring sees its apprentices as absolutely vital to its future prosperity and growth. This faith starts at the top with the Government and is filtered
down through industry. As I reflected on the situation in the UK where consecutive governments have chosen to neglect manufacturing in favour of an economy centred around finance and services resulting in a lost generation of engineers, I even managed to utter a few words to the training school instructor. “It used to be like this in the UK,” I reminisced. I think he nodded sympathetically.
Dave Tudor Editor
of machining and turning centre sales is that Hurco will take its largest ever stand (250m²) at MACH 2012. This is just as well, as we will exhibit our second largest machine, the 45 tonne DCX22 bridge type machining centre with 2,200mm x 1,700mm x 750mm travels.”
An interesting aspect of recent order intake is that average value is greater than in previous years. Part of the reason is the migration of 4-axis machining centre users to higher value 5-axis models, which are selling particularly well. A dozen mid- range VMX30U 5-axis models alone were shipped in 2010/11 and Mr Waghorn expects that figure to double next year. Further reasons for the higher unit order value is the increasing
popularity of extra functionality, such as higher spindle speed options, full swarf management, through-tool coolant, and especially part and tool probing, the supply of which was 40% up on last year.
As always, products from a number of partner companies were in evidence at the show including CAD/CAM software from Open Mind and Delcam, tooling from SGS, Gewefa and Ceratizit, coolants and cutting oils from MacInnes Tooling, Roemheld and 1st MTA/Kitagawa workholding equipment and rotary tables, Renishaw probing solutions, and Finance for Industry.
Gibbs Gears is a family run gear manufacturer with over 60 years of experience in the manufacture of cut gears. Work is undertaken on a complete supply or a gear cutting basis and the company has CNC facilities for both turning and gear cutting. As part of a wider investment programme, Gibbs has recently installed a new DuraMaxTM coordinate measuring machine from Carl Zeiss with a view to making precision measurement easily accessible to shopfloor personnel. Featuring Zeiss VAST XXT sensor technology, it will replace a range of gauges – from ring gauges to form measuring machines. “With manufacturing
becoming more efficient and tolerances and materials becoming more demanding, our value to customers is increasing due to our flexibility and quality,” enthused Gibbs’ technical director, Dave Worthington. “Whether manufacturing a one-off part or production volumes, the same manufacturing and inspection processes are followed and the new CMM will ensure not only precision and accuracy, but also consistency.” The new installation at Gibbs comes complete with the GearPro software suite, adding greater capability for the measurement of involute gears.
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