WATCH THE LATEST EPISODE OF THE EDITOR’S PICK WITH PHIL STANLEY HERE
The Made in Group kicked off the official first Midlands episode of the Editor’s Pick today with editor Phil Stanley - Managing Director of Threeway Pressings.
Phil sat down with Tony Sartorius (Chairman of Alucast Limited), Chris Needham (Managing Director of MetroCAD UK Ltd) and Daniel Cole (Business Development Manager at EGL Vaughan) to discuss their latest news stories
Phil kicked off the live segment, which is streamed across all Made in Group social channels every 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month to the group’s 30K+ followers, by introducing himself and the new event.
As Editor, Phil had the opportunity to select 3 recent featured articles from the Made in the Midlands platform and spoke directly with the members who published them.
First up was Tony Sartorius, Chairman from Alucast, to discuss their article “Alucast Invest in New 5 Axis Machine to Further Increase Capacity”.
Alucast recently invested in a new, state-of-the-art Quaser 5 axis machine in order to further increase capacity to cope with demand from OEM’s and Tier 1 customers. Due to the ramped-up demand after the COVID-19 downturn, Alucast’s machine shop has pushed the boundaries of its capacity, with more orders on the horizon, the management team made the decision to invest to increase machine shop capacity.
“It was a bold decision at the time to invest and buy 6-axis machines”, alongside the property to house them and the people to be trained for using them, said Tony whilst speaking with Phil.
Tony, speaking at the potential of local industry, went on to say that “They talk about Birmingham being the city of a thousand trades, but so is the Black Country.”
Despite Alucast being a relatively small company with less than 100 customers, Tony emphasised that the company has been responsible for work that has been seen by the majority of people worldwide. As Alucast made castings for the Olympic torch from back in 2012, seen by billions of people worldwide.
Next up was Dan Cole from EGL Vaughan to discuss their article “BIG Things for EGL Vaughan After Award Winning Success”.
Precision engineering specialists EGL Vaughan have made a name for themselves after being recognised as ‘Best Precision Machining Specialists’ by SME News. After being acquired by Allied Global Engineering in 2020, EGL has also announced a facility move.
A new site has also been a great way to have a “clean sheet to start again” for EGL Vaughan, says Dan; allowing the company to focus on lean manufacturing and clearing out tooling and equipment which hadn’t been used in years.
Finally, Phil spoke with Chris Needham, Managing Director from MetroCAD UK Ltd to discuss their article “Metro CAD Encourage SMEs to Utilise Robot Capabilities with Renting Options Available Soon As New RoboRent Solution Comes to Market”.
The ongoing challenges around Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic, have encouraged Metro CAD previously to invest in the metrology side of the business to add to the existing simulation and robot programming service. However, their new game-changing solution utilises the company’s long-established automation services toolset to their new robot cell service rental called RoboRent. This is a new solution in the marketplace removing much of the perceived pain and obvious financial constraints for companies that need to consider automation when the only other consideration is a large uplift in skilled labour which has its own issues.
Speaking with Phil, Chris said that “One of the myths of automation is that it replaces a man standing at a bench. It doesn’t.”
Instead, Chris suggests that the person can use the “robot” as a “tool” to speed up efficiency and increase quality of work, instead of them being replaced entirely.
Ultimately, for Chris, “we have no doubts that robots are the way forward”, as UK manufacturing has to ensure that our labour is working in the most efficient way possible.
The final question for Phil - asking the whole of the group - was “Is it coming home?” And with positive responses all around, let’s hope their passion is mirrored in tonight’s result for England!