Sparks Success at F1 Supplier
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Success Story Sparks Success at F1 Supplier When Glen Tavender and Dave Moore acquired subcontract wire and spark erosion company Erode All over 12 years ago, the small business was dedicated to serving the mould & die industry with press tooling... …The ‘have-a-go’ attitude of the company’s partners saw the business shift from the declining press tooling market to encompass more flexible general machining. From subbing out work, the company acquired a number of three axis machine tools that rapidly brought a shift in workload and in particular a lucky break with an F1 team to produce a component. The successful project brought additional F1 work and the incestuous industry soon noted Erode All working with a number of F1 teams. The Erode All workload is now 80% F1 focused and 20% dedicated to medical work with the business supplying virtually every team on the F1 starting grid. ERODE ALL Over the last ten years Erode All has evolved into one of the UK’s leading F1 motor sport component manufacturers. Considerable investment in both plant and personnel has been made to establish the state of the art precision wire erosion and engineering facility in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. The success has arrived credit to employee dedication and investment in a series of high end DMG machine tools, with the latest acquisition a 10-pallet Mikron UCP600 machining centre arriving in November. This investment in 5-axis technology started 3 years ago and was a necessity for machining the extremely complex F1 components. However, such investment demands CAD/CAM software that is also of the highest quality and capability. For this, the High Wycombe based company invested in the hyperMILL CAD/CAM package from OPEN MIND Technologies. ® © OPEN MIND Technologies AG. The best package As company partner Mr Glen Tavender says: “We were taking on complex work that our 3-axis software was finding difficult to cope with. Moreover, if we had difficulties with particular parts the vendor wasn’t interested in supporting us. Knowing the situation couldn’t continue, we started to look at what other packages were avail able. We have some first class competitors making exremely difficult parts and they t were all using OPEN MIND’s hyperMILL . We also investigated our customers – the F1 teams, and some of them were also using h yperMILL . Despite this feedback we still compared the available packages and found for ourselves that hyperMILL was the best package available for our company.” ® “We cannot feasibly quantify the benefits of the system, however it was installed in October 2007 and following the bedding in period we had our four best months of business ever from January to April 2008. Our business grew by 25%. More than just a coincidence, we knew the hyperMILL packa e played a major part in this,” says g Mr Tavender. ® “The hyperMILL system is considerably f aster than its predecessor with programming tim

“We are now confident that any job we program will be 100% right first time with excellent component quality.” Glen Tavender, Company partner “The OPEN MIND package has not only improved our ‘drawing to machine’ times but it has exceptional routines and strategies that have improved the surface finishes and tolerances of our workpieces. We are now confident that any job we program will be 100% right first time with excellent component quality. What is more important is the support of OPEN MIND. If we ever have any difficulties with particular parts, an OPEN MIND engineer is always available...

“If the combination of machine tools and our hyperMILL pack age can make customers so comfortable with our capabilities, ® I have no reservations in purchasing more seats. Another positive for us when buying additional seats is that we can cost effectively acquire the basic version of hyperMILL . We already have the add-on modules required for our business. OPEN MIND makes these modules easily transferable to the other seats, so capability is maximised and cost is minimised,” concludes Mr. Tavender. ® About OPEN MIND Technologies AG OPEN MIND is one of the world’s most sought-after...