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Purchasing its first 5-axis machining centre in 2016, a Hurco VMX42SRTi, Almond Engineering has now installed a second machine. The company prefers this style of 5-axis machine due to its versatility for tackling a wide variety of work. In 2018, the company also acquired a Hurco VMX30i with a 4th axis rotary table plus a larger 3-axis VMX60i.

The Overall spend at the Livingston site in 2018 exceeded \xa3400,000 and more will be invested throughout 2019. Driving this investment was 25% growth in 2016/17, a further increase in turnover the following year and a predicted 19% rise in the current financial year. It is a pace that Managing director Chris Smith describes as \u2018almost too fast\u2019 in view of the perennial difficulty in hiring skilled staff.

Much of the growth has come from the medical sector in Scotland, such as the assembly of lines for producing contact lenses and the machining of parts for operating theatre equipment. Semiconductor firms across the central belt of Scotland are the other main sector serviced, while contracts are also received from the ever resilient aerospace and defence industries. Almond Engineering now operates eight Hurco machines.

As to the subcontractor's continued purchase of the Hurco brand, Mr Smith commented: "Ours is a prototype and small batch production environment, so efficient shop floor programming is important to us. We rely on it 90% of the time. Back in 2004, we had a number of manual mills and one vertical machining centre, but spent more time programming them than actually cutting metal.

"To take over from them, in 2004 we bought our first VMX42 with a one-metre X-axis. The Hurco control was clearly ahead at the time in terms of the speed and capability of its conversational programming. Additionally, the machines are cost effective to buy as well as being robust, reliable and accurate. We regularly hold \xb1 0.01mm when cutting virtually any material."

He pointed also to the user friendliness of Hurco machines, with staff able to move seamlessly between the twin-screen WinMAX controls powering the larger machining centres and the single-screen MAX controls on the smaller VM1 machining centre and TM8 lathe. The subcontractor's hyperMILL offline CAM system from OPEN MIND is used mostly for programming more complex 3+2 axis cycles to reduce set-ups and improve accuracy on the 5-axis machines.

Organic growth has resulted in the number of employees rising from 24 to 37, including three apprentices taken on recently. Much effort is put into training the existing workforce and cooperating with local schools to promote engineering and STEM subjects with an eye to future recruitment of employees.

In June 2019, Almond Engineering completed its first company takeover by acquiring the trade and assets of another Livingston company, Multex, which will see turnover increase by a further 16%. Established in 1991, the firm designs and manufactures test equipment for electronic circuit boards.

A further benefit is the additional CNC and manual machining facilities that are available at the Multex site, giving both businesses increased capacity, flexibility and factory floor space.