Four years ago, Portsmouth-based

							                                                                                               in action...
DKW Engineering, Portsmouth




                                                                                           the name in sliding-headstock technology
             UK subcontractor turns
               tables on Chinese




F
      our years ago, Portsmouth-based        DKW’s engineering manager, Jerry Acres,
      contract machinist, DKW                commented that HPC greatly assists
      Engineering, lost 40 per cent of its   unattended machining of stainless steel,
business to China, most of it simple         which accounts for two thirds of the
turning and milling work. Today, direct
exports to that country account for 15 per
                                             Portsmouth subcontractor’s output.
                                                                                                  “One-hit mill-
cent of DKW’s turnover and the lost
business has been largely replaced by
                                             Experience with the latest Star SR-20RII
                                             has shown that surface turning speeds
                                                                                                  turning on the
higher-added-value contracts for more        and feed rates can be increased by                   Stars helps
complex components.                          as much as 30 per cent thanks to the
                                             ability of the coolant to break up the               us to quote
Many subcontractors have found that the      stringy swarf and dispel the chips
answer to competition from low-wage          efficiently from the working area. The               lower prices
countries is to move away from manually      intention is to retrofit HPC to three other
operated machine tools to one-hit            similar machines on the shop floor.                  and make
production on CNC lathes and machining
centres.    This is exactly what DKW’s       DKW regards the uptime of Star lathes as
                                                                                                  more profit,
managing director, Nick Iacobucci has
done.
                                             exemplary. The first two – an SR-20 and
                                             SR-32 – were installed in April 1997 and
                                                                                                  with 25%
                                             have scarcely gone wrong in 10 years.                fewer staff”
Since 1997 he has decommissioned 60          Jerry Acres confirms that these and all of
cam automatics and replaced them with        the other Star lathes hardly need any
seven sliding-head mill-turning centres of   unscheduled attention.           “It is              Nick Iacobucci
12/16, 20 and 32 mm capacity from Star       incredible - we are still waiting for                Managing Director
Micronics GB.                                them to go wrong”, he said.                          DKW Engineering



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