BROADCASTS.com

To retain a position as a successful subcontract manufacturing business for more than 60 years is an achievement.

But, to be an industry leader and innovator, like Pope & Meads, is something that has required significant investment.

In the last three years, the company has invested in 8 new machine tools, all being optimised by cutting tools from ISCAR. 

The Hertford Company manufactures very high-quality components and assemblies for the aerospace, defence, medical, automotive and scientific instrument industries.

Differentiating its quality and precision from other subcontract companies, 50 employee Pope & Meads has an ISO Class 7 Clean Room as well as ISO: 9-20001 S-C: twenty-one and are working towards their AS: 9100 accreditation.

So, when the company invested in a Star S-R-32-J sliding head, Mazak 250-Q-S-M and three-hundred-M-Y turning centres plus two 4-axis Mazak V-C-N 430 A machining centres and three Hurco V-M-10s and a V-M-20 machining centre, in less than three years, it needed to ensure its cutting tools were capable of maximising the output on its new investments. 

Commenting upon this, Pope & Meads Director, David Williams says: “A few years ago, we set-up an engineering team with the specific remit of bringing a completely fresh approach to our facility to reduce waste, enhance quality and improve production methods.

This team has been instrumental in our improvements in efficiency and productivity, we had to change machining strategies – closely looking at how to reduce set-ups through workholding and tooling strategies to improve our throughput and quality.”

“We had been using ISCAR tooling for more than 6-years through a third-party supplier, but the supply chain was lacking the technical expertise to really deliver the changes we needed.

As a long-term user of ISCAR products, we knew the quality and diversity of the product ranges was beyond reproach, but it was the technical support we really needed to reap all the benefits of the cutting tools.

So, two years ago we went direct to ISCAR and we haven’t looked back since.”

By working directly with Birmingham based ISCAR, Pope & Meads had gained a ‘technical partner’ that invited the subcontractor to regular technical seminars to grasp an understanding of the latest innovations.

Supporting the seminars, ISCAR provided comprehensive training and support that importantly for Pope & Meads, included a complete review of machining strategies.

Recalling one of the first projects that ISCAR were involved with, David Williams says: “One of the first jobs ISCAR engineers were involved in, was a magnetically sensitive component for a high-precision electron microscope.

The large Swedish Iron billet is a regular job with a quantity of three-hunred-off per year and the ISCAR team initiated a change of tools that instantly reduced the roughing cycles from 3 hours to less than one.”

The microscope part required a tapered bore with an outer bore diameter of 200mm tapering at 30 degrees to an internal bore seat diameter of 46mm with a depth of 146mm.

The previous process required drilling and subsequent time consuming internal boring operations with depths of cut minimised to avoid disrupting the magnetic properties of the sensitive parts.

However, the ISCAR application team demonstrated their ingenuity by researching the magnetic properties of Swedish Iron and this enabled them to completely change the cutting parameters of the drilling process.

The 40mm indexable drill with ISCAR’s I-C-908 grade inserts was introduced with a massively increased feed rate.

Increasing the feed rates from 0.028 mm/rev to 0.1 mm/rev, the Mazak 250-Q-S-M turning centre increased the turret feed from 28 to 95 mpm.

This subsequently increased the Material Removal Rate from 35 cm3/min to over 120 cm3/min

The result was a cycle time reduction from 353 seconds per hole to 103 seconds – an entire four minutes per part.

Whilst this performance was undoubtedly impressive, it was a 15-percent insert cost reduction that was amplified by the fact that the new ISCAR I-C-nine-zero-eight inserts had 4-edges.

This was compared to the previous competitor product with 2-edges, and that further impressed from a financial standpoint.

Despite the combination of reduced cycle times, reduced tooling costs and economy being impressive; when combined with the increase in tool life – that was when the benefits became genuinely staggering.

The ISCAR drill outperformed its competitor by extending tool life from 15 to 25 parts per insert edge.

So, the ISCAR drill not only reduced cycle times by 4 minutes per part, it also reduced the cost per part by £3.75, a 70-percent saving.
However, the drill was only the first step to producing the internal bore.

Following the drilling operation, ISCAR introduced its ISO-Turn A-thirty-two-S boring bar with a CNMX insert geometry with ISCAR’s I-C-six-zero-fifteen grade.

Tasked with internally turning the 30 degree bore, the ISCAR application engineers increased the cutting speed from 130 to 160 mpm and the spindle speed from 460 to 560 RPM compared to the previous tool.

Increasing the Depth of Cut from 2mm to 2.42mm, the Material Removal Rate increased from 79 cm3/min to 120 cm3/min – once again outperforming the previous supplier.

To emphasise the benefits of the ISCAR boring line, for a batch of 26 parts the tooling cost was 10% lower, the cycle time was reduced by 39 hours from 123 to 84 and the cost reduction per batch equated to a saving of £1,940!

The combination of the ISCAR drill and C-N-M-X boring line is reducing machining times by 16 minutes per part, purely on the cone-shaped bore.

Reducing machining times and set-ups is a critical factor for Pope & Meads, as the company often works to part tolerances of plus-or-minus 3-microns with completed assemblies often having a plus-or-minus 5-micron tolerance.

Discussing the types of work undertaken at Pope & Meads and the emphasis on capacity, David Williams says: “Manufacturing high-precision parts and assemblies from nickel-iron, titanium, In-connell seven-one-eight and other challenging materials for aerospace and scientific projects, really isn’t the type of work you can subcontract out to external vendors.

Added to this, we are on 24/7 call-out for some of our customers, so sufficient capacity is critical to our success.

Along with the new machine tool investments, ISCAR has been instrumental in ensuring we can meet these capacity demands.”


The Benefits of a close relationship
“By developing a good working relationship with ISCAR, our engineering team is now looking to adopt ceramic tooling products for the first time.

During early trials, the new ISCAR ceramic turning lines are capable of increasing our machining speeds from 38mm/min to over 115mm/min when roughing in-connell 718.

This really is a ‘step-change’ in our machining strategies, something we wouldn’t have considered without the expert advice of ISCAR engineers.

We are still in the infancy with trails, but the results have been outstanding.”

Currently undergoing a trial phase on a scanning component for the semi-conductor industry, Pope & Meads is tasked with machining 336 parts per year, with volumes expected to rise to over 500 in subsequent years. 

By changing out the existing ISCAR CMNG 12047 TF IC-806 insert grade and replacing it with the ISCAR ISO-TURN RNGN 120700-T I-S-350 the performance improvements have initially been staggering.

ISCAR has increased the cutting speed from 191 to 573 R-P-M with a feed rate increase from 38 to 114.9 millimetres-per-minute.

This has reduced the machining time from 26 minutes to just over 8 minutes.

Furthermore, the double-sided ceramic insert grade is destined to reduce tooling costs whilst improving productivity rates.

ISCAR’s Area Sales Manager, Mr Dave Thompsell says: “Ceramic tooling requires a step-change in machining strategies and customers need to adopt completely new philosophies.

For example, Inconel seven-one-eight is generally machined with C-N-M-G insert grades at 40-50 meters-per-minute, we are applying ceramic button inserts at over 180 meters-per-minute with a feed rate of 0.25 millimetres-per-revolution.

It is these parameters that are creating the huge benefits for Pope & Meads.”

“As part of the machining strategy, we initially hit the part with a C-N-M-G insert to create an entry angle of 35 to 45 degrees.

This is because ceramic tooling is sensitive to impact and intermittent cutting.

We then radially enter the part with the ceramic button tool and during the cycle, we continually vary the depth of cut to prevent notching.

By introducing these strategies, we are witnessing huge productivity gains and we are excited about introducing additional new lines to this part, and many others at Pope & Meads.

Despite being a company that is over 60 years old, the refreshing approach to machining strategies and cutting tools will allow ISCAR to deliver significant benefits to this great company,”