UK company Al-Met’s machining shop predominantly manufactures components for flow control valves for the oil and gas industry with a range of machine tools, including a recently acquired 5-axis machining center and 5-axis lathe.

A common factor, though, is that CAM programming is carried out with Vero's Edgecam software system. In addition, the company now uses the Javelin production control system, also from Vero, to help ensure full traceability of those components.

The company has over 2,000 parts on its systemManaging Director Phil Harmer says, “We had previously been running parts through four or five operations and it took a while to be fully confident with switching to the Mori Seiki MTX 2000 5-axis machining center and doing everything in one set-up with Edgecam. Now one particular job that used to take four or five days is fully processed in just under two hours.”

But with over 2,000 parts on their system and 500 works orders going through the shopfloor each month the company knew that improvements were needed in production control.

“We are working with up to 200 line items on the shopfloor every day and each has a different route card and order of operations,” says Harmer. “Javelin fully controls that and also shows how many hours each job takes, so we can capture all the costings as well.”

Shopfloor data capture is crucial. Harmer says that information is collected on around 35 different machining possibilities from 33 work stations.

“Some jobs may have a lead in time through the shop of a couple of weeks, and then remain static for two or three days,” he says. “SFDC allows us to map where all these products are and enables us to print the works tool list for that particular week. There are many opportunities to attach and link documents, drawings, certificates and results at the click of a key. To have an efficient electronic data library of every detail we need from all jobs we have worked on is a huge benefit.”