With a history going back almost 70 years The Accranut Company, along with its sister business Coventry Collets, continues to look to the future and invest in the right technology and processes for its business and product development. This includes several machines purchased from XYZ Machine Tools, including the latest LR series vertical machining centre.
Both the Accranut Company and Coventry Collets have built their success on the back of the machine tool industry, with The Accranut Company developing locknuts specifically for use by machine tool companies. Its business still supports machine builders with bespoke fixturing and workholding, as well as manufacturing machine parts that are no longer available as standard for customers around the world. Other OEM parts also include a range of flywheels and other automotive parts for classic, vintage and race cars, while also offering a sub-contracting operation for one-off and low-volume production. Coventry Collets continues to focus its attention on the manufacture and supply of collets and feed fingers for a wide variety of machine tools. The plan for Andy Davies is to create a one-stop-shop that combines machining, assembly, welding (including coded-welding) with customers able to call on all of its expertise, or just parts of it.
Both family-owned businesses operate under the guidance of managing director Andy Davies, who is driving the business forward with the help of his wife, son and sister, with investment in machining capacity playing a key role in the company’s development. “Up to 2012 we had no CNC machining capability within the business, but a chance meeting with the XYZ area sales manager led to me getting an introduction to CNC at XYZ’s Nuneaton showroom. This opened my eyes to the possibilities of CNC and we made our first purchase, an SLX 355 ProTURN lathe,” says Andy Davies.
That first machine was the start of a long-standing relationship as an XYZ SLX 555 ProTURN lathe soon followed, along with an XYZ SMX 3500 bed mill, all of which made use of the ProtoTRAK control system. With the business continuing to grow there arose an increased demand for milling capacity and Andy Davies turned again to XYZ. “We had become so familiar with the ease of use of the ProtoTRAK control that I thought the next step was to bring in the XYZ 2-OP machining centre, with it also having the ProtoTRAK control. However, after seeing a demonstration of an XYZ 750 LR vertical machining centre, the additional capacity swayed our decision. By adding a 4th axis rotary table as an option, we made further gains in capability.”
The move from the ProtoTRAK control on his previous XYZ machines to the Siemens 828D gave rise to some initial concerns, but following two days training at XYZ, and a day back at Accranut on their machine with the 4th axis unit, he realised that it was a natural progression. The combination of ProtoTRAK and Siemens controls is now providing Accranut with a distinct competitive advantage: “We specialise in low volume work, with 20-off being fairly typical. With the simplicity of these two controls we can be machining parts before our competitors have even thought about programming them. This makes it an easy decision for them to give us the work to do as we are cost-effective and efficient. “We can only grow our business through investment and the XYZ machines are part of that strategy. We are very comfortable with the machines in terms of their capability and this is backed by XYZ’s customer service, which is excellent. If I hadn’t been happy with the first machine we bought I wouldn’t have bought a second, never mind a third and a fourth.”
The XYZ LR series of machines is the first range of Siemens-controlled vertical machining centres to be sold by XYZ Machine Tools with linear rail technology. The development of this technology in recent years has given XYZ the confidence that these machines meet their own stringent quality standards and, they sit alongside the traditional box slideway machines to provide customers with the optimum choice of machining centre ownership.
Website: www.xyzmachinetools.com Website: www.agitatepr.co.uk
