Within three months of installation a Fanuc Robodrill, Raytheon Marine Company based in Portsmouth calculated savings of GBP6,000 on components it produced due to faster set ups.
Within three months of installation a Fanuc Robodrill, Raytheon Marine Company based in Portsmouth calculated savings of GBP6,000 on components it produced due to faster set ups and cycle time reductions of between 25 and 60 per cent. By the end of the first 12 months, additional savings from bringing in-house subcontract machining that was previously put outside due to increasing demand and insufficient capacity, will raise a further GBP10,000 while already bringing to an end, concerns over quality control and delivery. The Fanuc Robodrill T14iA has increased Raytheon's milling and drilling capacity by 250 per cent and is predominantly used on aluminium alloy components.

These are used in marine autopilot systems which are part of the company's world leading capability in marine electronics including radar, satellite navigation, autopilots, chart plotters and fish finders.

Raytheon, originally trading as Nautech, was founded in 1974 by Derek Fawcett, the inventor of the first Autopilot.

It was purchased by US defence giant Raytheon in 1992, which subsequently fuelled significant growth within the organisation.

Today, it has sales of over GBP139 million, employs around 300 people at Portsmouth and produces around 2,000 Autopilot systems per week of which 75 per cent of the navigation products are exported to America.

Raytheon's machining mostly involves aluminium alloy and aluminium bronze components for the 15 different basic types and a number of variants of the Autopilot system.

This can include the production of various parts for hydraulic pumps, ballscrews, gearbox assemblies, wind vanes, clutch assemblies, plates and covers.

Batch sizes are typically around 150 to 200 and tolerances are down to 10 microns.

Most machining cycles involve light profile milling along with extensive drilling and tapping for which the largest components a non-ferrous cast motor cover plate takes around 10 minutes.

Most other production operations are usually fairly short at between two and three minutes each.

Senior production engineer Neil Panter outlined the background to the purchase of the Robodrill.

'We are strongly committed to pursuing lean manufacturing with the machine shop supplying manufacturing cells on Kanban principles.

This has led to much smaller batches and increased set-ups which, in turn gives quicker throughput times.

But we needed extra capacity on light milling, drilling and tapping to meet increasing demand and after a thorough examination of the small vertical machining centre market we opted for the Fanuc Robodrill.

Its cost to performance ratio, high productivity, capability and ease of set-up were strong arguments for purchase.' The machine was installed in May 2000.

Other factors which influenced the decision in favour of the T14iA were the interchangeability of spindle and fixture tooling with the company's existing machines and the popularity of the Fanuc control with operators.

The Robodrill has been positioned adjacent to an existing vertical machining centre to form a two machine cell for Autopilot components and is manned by a single operator.

The cell runs 24 hours a day for five days a week; while the machine can be used to produce any of the Autopilot components, it is mainly the more complex and high tolerance parts that are machined.

Says Neil Panter: 'The introduction of this machine has eliminated our capacity problems to such a level that we are now using it for tooling and prototype work which makes full use of the Fanuc CAP programming system on the machine control.

A prime example of savings made is the 56 per cent reduction in floor to floor time of a 150mm by 250mm by 50mm aluminium alloy linear motor plate.

It requires 14 different elements for the machining cycle involving profile milling, thread milling, drilling and tapping.

Major reasons for the faster time against the existing vertical machining centres is the 48 m/min rapid positioning, the 8,000 revs/min spindle speed of the Robodrill and its ability to rigid tap at 5,000 rev/min.

On another job, two basic slot milling operations on a cast iron linear clutch mechanism are now being carried out some 62 per cent faster on the Robodrill.

In addition to the minimal lost time in positioning typical milling and drilling feed rates are between 1.5 to 2m/min.

The installation of the Fanuc Robodrill has done much to streamline machining efficiency and improve quality standards to which Neil Panter adds: 'The machine has exceeded our expectations due to its ease of set-up, speed of operation and the rate with which it can accurately mill, drill and tap with minimal non-cutting times.