Pictured: The Beakbane magazine fabrications are
incorporated into machine tools built at Redditch as well as
complete tool magazines that are sent to Heller's other
factories
Beakbane has invested in new plant and facilities and taken on
new staff after winning a contract from Heller UK to manufacture
hundreds of heavy fabrications for machining centre tool
magazines.
Kidderminster-based Beakbane is producing one magazine
fabrication a day for Heller UK - and is already planning for
increased volumes.
Beakbane is a leading supplier of machine protection equipment,
supplying components such as slideway covers, bellows and armoured
aprons for all kinds of machine tools. It complements this with a
contract manufacturing service and has been supplying Heller with
machine tool components and fabrications such as door sets since
the 1990s.
The magazine fabrications had previously been made 100% in-house
at Heller's plant in Germany and the decision to re-source them in
the UK came as part of Heller's move to make Redditch its worldwide
centre of excellence for chain-type tool magazines.
Heller's UK machine tool factory produces four models of
four-axis horizontal machining centre - the H2000, H4000, H5000 and
H6000. Magazine fabrications supplied by Beakbane will be used on
all of these machining centres, which are exported around the
world.
In addition, the fabrications from Beakbane will be incorporated
in tool magazines supplied from Redditch to Heller's other machine
tool manufacturing plants in Germany and Brazil. Altogether,
Beakbane is producing six variants of magazine fabrication, the
heaviest weighing 1.25 tonnes.
It is now Heller's sole external supplier of fabrications for
magazines, and only fabrications for the very largest machines and
non-standard items are made in-house in Germany.
Beakbane has invested approximately £80,000 on plant and
equipment solely to support this project. This includes welding
equipment, fume extraction and compressors, as well as the
installation of a pit and lift table to allow welding to be carried
out at a safe and convenient height without the need for platforms
or ladders. Beakbane has also added a new overhead crane in its
Number 7 workshop to allow the new work to be carried out alongside
existing production.
Five new jobs have been created so that the factory can work a
full twin-shift system producing the magazine fabrications.
Heller has supplied Beakbane with a special welding jig and
engineers from its fabrication shop in Germany worked closely with
Beakbane to qualify it as a supplier.
Components for the fabrications are laser cut and then formed to
a high degree of precision before being assembled in the jig. The
jig ensures that the required tolerances in terms of dimensions,
parallelism and concentricity are maintained without the need for
further machining. All assembly holes and additional mating
surfaces are then masked off before the fabrications are sent out
for wet painting. They are then supplied to Heller for final
assembly of mechanisms such as gears, sprockets, chains, tool
pockets and so on.
Heller UK's Logistics Manager Tobias Grimm commented: "We
started working with Beakbane over 15 years ago when they supplied
slideway covers for a previous range of machines, so we knew they
were a good supplier. We started giving them fabrications too, more
and more complicated work, and they did a good job for us. Then we
at Heller made a strategic decision to have our centre of
competence for chain type magazines here in the UK. So we wanted a
local supplier for the fabrications and naturally thought of
Beakbane."
Beakbane's Managing Director Mike Southwell added: "We are
delighted that Heller has decided to entrust us with this major
project. This adds yet another strand to our portfolio of services
and products for machine tool manufacturers and shows that we are
prepared to make major investments in time and resources to meet
the needs of our customers."