Computer controlled machines put firm on high-growth path

Press, 30 June 1982, Page 23

Computer controlled machines put firm on high-growth path

By

NEILL BIRSS

Computer controlled machinery has enabled a Christchurch firm to expand its stuff from five to almost 60 in three years. Betta Metal Products, in

Selwyn Street, is a specialist sheet-metal firm, making close-tolerance products and components for electronics manufacturers. The joint managing directors of Betta Metal decided to go into numerically controlled (computer controlled) machine tools when they took over the firm about three years ago. The staff then comprised a handful of skilled men in their 50s. and the new management faced the problem of how to expand to supply customer firms which had high rates of growth. For 18 months the firm has had a two numerically controlled (N.C.) machines: a press brake and a turret press. The result has been spectacular. Production has risen, and staff numbers with this tb handle the increased flow ‘’downstream" from the new installations. N.C. machines suit New Zealand’s scale of- industry, says Mr Keith Mclver, who is' joint managing director with Mr J. W. Francis. In sheet-metal work, for example, huge production runs justify the building of special presses and production by conventional means. Batches between small, one-off jobs and the large orders needed for special presses suit N.C. machines, and are typical of New Zealand production runs. The press brake, which has

a replacement value of about $45,000 is hard-wired (that is. the programmes cannot be changed). But it offers a list of scores of operations that can be carried out on a sheet of metal, with fine tolerances. Setting the machine is by a simple panel not unlike that on a computerised petrol pump. The operator keys in variables such as angles and dimensions, and the press rake carries out up to 100 successive operations on a piece of metal. Previously, a stack of metal sheets would be processed through one step at a time by an operator on a machine. When one operation had been carried out on each of the sheets,: the'‘stack of metal would then be manhandled to the next stage of production. The N.C. turret press contains 24 different punches over a table which moves in two directions. A computer reads instructions from paper tape and manoeuvres a sheet of metal into position, selects the punches, and cuts out the programmed design. The programme, in a special language, commands the pattern. Tolerance given by the NC turret press, which has a replacement value of about $250,000 is of the order of one-tenth of a millimetre. Operating this machine in one fabrication, two men can do in a shift and a half the

work that by old methods would lake one man about four weeks: that is 24 manhours to do the work that previously required about 160 man-hours. Gradually, however. the press is run by one man. Skilful marketing has complemented Betta Metal’s computerised manufacturing. Though the lion’s share of its output still goes to New Zealand electronics firms such as Tait Electronics. Ltd. in Christchurch and AWA. in Wellington, Betta Metal has been successfully testing overseas markets. It exports components to both Australia and the United States, and has made one sale of a hundred cabinets to a firm in San Jose, in Silicon Valley, the world centre of electronics. But Mr Mclver emphasises that exporting by the firm is only a small part of its activities. The great bulk of the output is exported in finished articles. Government sources of finance that are available most easily only to direct exporters have become open to Betta Metal since it began selling components abroad. The firm has broadened its manufacturing to include finishing the components with an epoxy coating. It also controls sub-contract work, so that it can supply virtually a finished product to the electronics maker and assembler.