Water-jet Case Study 3—Machine Roughing
The Brief
We were approached by a machining company who were buying in 70 mm aluminium billets that were used to produce a machined component. They were buying billets because it was uneconomical to buy plates to the cut down to sizes required for their machine.
Because of this, the billets had to be roughly machined to the size of the component and then precision machined to complete the product.
The issue for the customer was that buying the billets was an expensive way to have metal delivered and once delivered the roughing process was time consuming and expensive.
The Solution
We were able to take the shape the customer required to start machining, added a machining tolerance around the profile of the aluminium and nested the profile onto 70 mm aluminium plates for water-jet cutting.
As a result we were able to provide the customer with a component that could go straight onto their machines to start the precision machining activities and take out the initial, roughing operation saving significant time and improving capacity.
Additionally, there was an improvement in material costs as the nesting process maximised the number of components per plate; the speed of the water-jet is greater than the speed of roughing a billet, leading to an improvement in turnaround times.