R.M Tool and Die (RMT) was founded in 1987 to provide a rapid response service to industry. Three CME CNC bed mills ensure on-time delivery of moulds.
R.M Tool and Die (RMT) was founded in 1987 to provide a rapid response service to industry. Then, as now, lead times are decreasing and on-time delivery ever more critical. UK toolmakers' are also constantly under threat from the strength of the pound and labour intensive Far East toolrooms promising the earth.

However, specialising in tools for the automotive industry, RMT has steadily expanded, and now occupies four sites at the heart of the Midlands communications network in Coventry and achieves a 98% on-time delivery.

RMTs expansion has been remarkable considering the economic climate and the resultant threat from toorooms worldwide.

Organised in four 'Unit Cells', the ability to produce a high quality mould mirrors the company's portfolio of automotive clients - Aston Martin, Ferrari, BMW, Honda, Rover and Volvo.

Pattern making, detailed CNC work, and EDM operations, are situated in three of the 'unit cells'.

However, the main site, is dedicated to the design and manufacture of a wide range of press tools, resin injection mould, blow mould, P20 tool steel RIM moulds and so on.

It houses three CME BF03 bed mills, installed by Yuasa Warwick Machinery to cater for the expansion and aid on-time delivery, as RMT Managing Director, Mike Walton explained.

'All the units are served by the expanding CAD/CAM facility here in Unit 2.

Electronic data currently accounts for the majority of incoming designs, although we have the facility to handle 'old-fashioned' paper designs.

Typically, we will examine the design data and discuss relevant detail with the client.

Unlike most companies our CNC machining technicians are involved at the design stage using Catia 4.2, Delcam Power Shape and Work NC.

Not only does it give us greater flexibility but the operators gain a closer understanding of each project.

As well as our 'blue chip' automotive clients we have seen a growth in moulds for fast-moving consumables, the leisure industry and the defence sector.

However, we project-manage each job, and aim to deliver the component, whether for a top-secret military project or a prototype for an international sweet manufacture, in the required time frame.

Although our strength is in producing a variety of automotive moulds, we can produce a twin impression aluminium blow mould for a garden slide using the latest machine tools and manufacturing techniques in less than five weeks.

We can also use traditional manufacturing techniques with CAD/CAM technology to produce cost-effective blow mould tooling.

In all cases the three CME BF03's are essential to our business, machining the bulk of the tools.' In Unit 2, one of the CME BF03s was machining a resin prototype model held in bespoke jigs and fixtures whilst a second was machining out the cavities for an aluminium bumper mould.

In the latter the BF03 was 'water lining', machining small cuts very quickly, utilising the Lemoine system fitted to two of the machines - allowing travel up to 8 metres/min at speeds of 10,000rpm.

Aluminium bumper tools are manufactured for low volume manufacture such as the Aston Martin DB7, whereas steel tools are required for larger production runs such as BMW and Rover.

'All our customers are happy for us to generate our own NC paths without referral.' states Walton cutter paths are networked to PC's situated by the machines and NC data is 'drip fed' to the relevant machine.

The BF03 can take a table load of 5500kg and with a machining capacity, 2 metre x 1metre cubed, it is ideal for the work we carry out.

Although our automotive tolerances are typically +/- 0.1mm we can rely on the machine's inherent accuracy - repeatability and positioning to +/- 0.01mm - when machining blow moulds to tighter tolerances.

We will also carry out finished quality control checks using a Stiefelmayer 3D co-ordinate measuring machine, plotting out a picture of each component and outputting a record of achieved tolerances.' 'We pride ourselves on our technical back-up and to date our controlled growth has seen us purchase the technology that has met the increased capacity and aided our on-time delivery ethos.

To that end, the machining technology and 'toolroom knowledge' at Yuasa Warwick is invaluable as we meet the continuing needs of our customer.' concluded Mike Walton.