CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
27 January 2012
Implementation Investments
Mori Seiki NLX and NVX Machines Set To Increase Market Share for Fife Fabrications
Fife Fabrications (FiFab) purchased its third and fourth Mori Seiki at the London WorldSkills 2011 event to cope with the growing demand for its products. The decision to purchase at this event is appropriate as FiFab actively supports local schools and colleges, near its base in Glenrothes, and has nine apprentices onsite to grow its own skills base for the future.
The new Mori Seiki NLX2500MC mill-turn centre and the NVX5100 vertical machining centre will be working alongside the company’s existing NL2500 and NL3000 lathes to service FiFab’s customers in the oil and gas, medical, bioscience and defence industries. John Penman Sales Director from FiFab says, “We are experiencing annual growth rates of 20% in our oil and gas business driven by the increasing cost of fuel. The 4th axis on the NLX2500MC expands our capability to achieve one-hit machining, which will reduce manufacturing times and increase the accuracy and the overall quality of our products, which will, in turn, help us to grow our market share.”
Adding more Mori Seiki machines was an easy decision for FiFab. John Penman says, “We have had the NL lathes for some time and the reliability and repeatability has been outstanding. The backup and service is good and they very rarely breakdown. The Mori Seiki machines have served us well so it makes sense to stick with them to maintain compatibility in our workshop.”
Both the NLX and the NVX benefit from massive high quality castings manufactured by Mori Seiki and have slideways on all the axes to further improve the dynamic rigidity of the machines and their vibration damping capabilities. The exceptional rigidity increases tool life and heavy duty cutting performance. New measures to reduce the effect of thermal displacement include air and oil cooling pipes around the spindle and coolant circulation inside the castings to achieve displacements of less than 7µm on the NVX and 2µm on the NLX.
John Penman comments, “We are a leading edge company producing high technology products and we need leading edge technology to stay competitive in a global market. The continuous improvement of productivity, efficiency and quality is crucial to our success. Mori Seiki works in partnership with us to help us meet our customer’s exacting demands. In my opinion you get what you pay for and Mori Seiki provides all round good value. The reliability and build quality of the machines will ensure that they will still be productive in 12-15 year’s time.”
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