Benham Precision Engineering is a prominent supplier in the aerospace and defence sectors, specialising in the production of complex components and sub-assemblies. Their products, such as manifolds, bodies, castings, and casings, play a critical role in ensuring safety, making even the slightest errors unacceptable in their manufacturing processes.
Benham Precision Engineering invested in a the ZOLLER Smile 600 from ZOLLER UK to minimise their tool presetting time. This has allowed them to ensure precise tool measurement and presetting, improve tooling processes and guarantee consistent product results.
ZOLLER UK delivers world-leading precision of tool-setting, inspection, storage and management solutions, adding improved efficiency and value to any manufacturing process.
Project Brief:
Benham Precision Engineering has been a leading supplier of complex components and sub-assemblies to the aerospace and defence sectors for many years. They needed to ensure that their tooling was accurate and precise to give them and their customers the confidence that their components are manufactured right-first-time.
Benham Precision Engineering were looking to update their old tool setting methods to the latest technology and contacted ZOLLER UK to explore their tool presetting and management options.
Neil Griggs, Engineering Manager of Benham Precision Engineering said:
“We’ve got some 76 tool change machines and it was taking us up to 3 hours to perform set up which is just dead time. We wanted to find a solution to reduce our set up and cycle times on the shopfloor.”
The Solution:
Benham Precision Engineering invested in the ZOLLER Smile 600 tool presetter, supplied by ZOLLER UK, to minimise their tool presetting time, ensure precise tool measurements and consistent product results.
The ZOLLER Smile 600’s CNC spindle and auto-focus features are designed for shop-floor environments. It offers robust construction, ergonomic features and seamless data transfers to ensures exceptional accuracy and repeatability.
“We found out about ZOLLER because it was in Mazak’s showroom. The ZOLLER Smile 600 eliminates those 3 hours of the set-up process. Rather than having to find the tool, put it into the machine to measure it, the ZOLLER does it all for you,” said Neil.
The Benefits:
Investing in a tool presetting solution from ZOLLER UK has allowed Benham Precision Engineering to enhance the accuracy of their tooling and upgrade their old machines to the latest technology. Benham Precision Engineering now has full confidence in the accuracy and consistency of their tool measurements to ensure the highest quality products.
Neil explained the benefits of Benham Precision Engineering’s latest investments with ZOLLER UK:
“Benham Precision Engineering would never be without a ZOLLER because it keeps the spindle running. It measures the lengths, diameters and all the information is stored on the back of the chip so it can be directly sent to the machine. It saves a significant amount of time and reduces our set-ups by about 2 hours, meaning means we’ve now got more capacity and subsequently increased productivity on our machines. We’ve had no reliability or other problems with the ZOLLER Smile 600 at all. We get it serviced every year and it has definitely made Benham Precision Engineering more profitable. My message to any other engineering company is invest in the ZOLLER. With its speed and efficiency, you will see a return on investment within 6 months.”
Why ZOLLER UK?
ZOLLER UK delivers world-leading precision of tool-setting, inspection, storage and management solutions, adding improved efficiency and value to any manufacturing process.
ZOLLER UK is part of the Carfulan Group who specialise in providing the most advanced manufacturing technologies available, helping customers across their five divisions to achieve optimal performance and end-product excellence.
