workholding
Focusing on manufacturing efficiency is one of the
ways of retaining machine shop operations within
the UK, instead of risking the work going abroad,
says John Dargavel, Director - Sales and
Marketing at Eclipse Magnetics.
Creating efficient
machine shops
PROVIDING simple and cost effective
work holding equipment is one way that UK
machine shops can remain competitive on
the world market. It is well known that
overseas operations can offer lower cost
labour; however these advantages are often
offset by transportation time,
communication and quality control
problems. At a time when customer service
expectations are rising, the fact that the
machining operation can be tens of
thousands of miles away means solving
technical problems in real time can be
extremely difficult.
Widespread use of the internet has had a
profound effect on machine shop operations
in the UK because it has made the
accessibility and comparison of hundreds of
different businesses, on price at least, much
easier. This meant that traditional locallybased
machine shops were suddenly finding
that they now had to compete against
manufacturers who had labour costs that
were a fraction of those in the UK. In recent
years, many machine shops have therefore
been looking at ways to better serve the home
market. To remain competitive against the
low cost operators, we have seen UK
businesses adopt a two-pronged approach.
The first of these is to focus on quality and
build on the UK's reputation for machining
excellence to create a valuable point of
differentiation. The second has been to
develop better and more efficient ways of
machining. This is where product
development at Eclipse Magnetics has played
an important part.
We recognised that magnet technology
could make a real difference in workholding
operations because some jobs often take
longer to set-up than the actual machining
time. This was an area where lower cost
countries had an advantage because of their
greatly reduced labour rates. Although
magnetic chucks have been around for some
time now and offer an excellent way to
increase throughput on these types of jobs,
the latest development in magnet technology
allows us to help machine shops become even
more competitive. As time setting up the
tooling adds to the cost of the product, the
new Power Matrix magnet helps reduce the
unit cost of each item by drastically reducing
clamping times. This is because the magnets
provide on/off clamping at the touch of a
button which, incidentally, is also failsafe,
meaning that if electric power is lost while a
workpiece is clamped, it remains safely held
in place.
Rare earth magnet technology is used in
the Power Matrix. This, coupled with square
pole technology, provides maximum holding
force from a slim 68mm high chuck. Every
pole is surrounded by poles of different
polarity. This generates a tight magnetic field
around each pole and means the clamping
force is equally high in every direction. This
matrix format allows thinner materials to be
clamped than is possible on parallel pole
chucks, with the added benefit that swarf
retention is reduced.
Over the last decade, low cost countries
have driven many UK machining operations
to look for ways of improving their
efficiency. More recently they have also had
to face the rise in raw material and energy
costs which means that there is now more
focus than ever on reducing the machining
62 MWP july 2008
times, as well as the unit cost of each item. At
the same time quality expectations have also
risen, particularly from certain sectors such
as the automotive industry, where high
precision machining can contribute to
improved energy efficiency of the engine.
This was another reason why we focused on
developing the latest square pole technology
in the UK market, the stronger holding
forces result in less chatter which means a
better finish and improved tool life. It also
allows for quicker loading and unloading of
multiple parts in a single set-up operation.
For medium and high batch sizes, magnetic
chucks provide a vital means of increasing
the efficiency of a machining operation.
Although this type of workholding
equipment has been in existence for some
time now, the latest developments in rare
earth magnetic technology means that they
are now providing many machining
operations with the ability to increase
efficiency. Magnetic chucks are easy to
incorporate into machining operations and
are best used where there is a large throughput
of work because it enables unit costs can
be reduced through savings in labour times.
In cases where workpieces are too thin to
withstand mechanical workholding, a
magnetic chuck can also provide a valuable
and reliable solution.
Many of our customers have already
discovered that magnetic chucks can provide
them with the ability to offset some of the
raw material price increases, as well as
forming part of a manufacturing strategy
that allows a business to compete with low
cost countries.
www.eclipse-magnetics.co.uk
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