More than £2 million has been spent upgrading the Heller Machine Tools manufacturing plant and headquarters in Redditch, UK. The administrative and applications engineering departments have benefitted from a comprehensive makeover, a new customer area for machine demonstrations has been added, and production output of horizontal machining centres has risen by 30 per cent.
The Worcestershire factory started operating in 1995, 21 years after the formation the UK subsidiary of Heller Maschinenfabrik GmbH, Germany. As part of the latest initiatives, activities in Redditch have expanded into assembly of 5-axis machines in addition to 4-axis models for world markets. The site is also a global competence centre for high quality, high precision turnkey projects and innovative manufacturing solutions.
David Evans, operations manager at the plant commented, “As part of our expansion, we recently installed an 11-station Strothmann flow line and new logistics system for complete manufacture of horizontal machining centres. Originally, our machine assembly was purely a mechanical process on an adjacent flow line and the machine had to be lifted off to be finished in a separate part of the factory.
“When we first moved from block assembly of machines in one location to the old flow line, there was an immediate 20 per cent increase in productivity. The new Strothmann system has resulted in a further reduction of at least 20 per cent in overall assembly time and we intend to improve on that further by making the process even leaner.”
Mechanical assembly of horizontal machining centres is completed over the first four stations in the line. All bed assembly is carried out off-line and the casting is delivered to the first carriage with the linear guideways already fitted. At every stage of the manufacturing process, work carried out on the machine is documented by the individuals concerned, providing full traceability as required in order to comply with the factory’s ISO 9001 accreditation.
Heller’s managing director in the UK, Dipl.-Ing. Matthias Meyer concluded, “The fact that we manufacture in this market gives our customers in the UK and Ireland considerable added value. Not only does our staff have a level of product knowledge that is much deeper than it would be otherwise, but also we can call on shop floor operatives, all of whom are apprentice-trained, to help out with installation, commissioning and service if required.
“Another benefit is that customers are welcome to visit us and see their machining centre actually being built, if it happens to be a model that we produce. Whatever machine they are buying, they can see the quality of engineering input, which is standard across all of our factories.”
