Colin, we’ve had some pretty sizeable new equipment delivered to the factory; what are we looking at here?

We’ve brought in three new machines, all of which are used to create the moulds (or patterns) required for manufacturing composite parts of the car. Two of the machines are called Antares, and there’s another known as the Ares. The Antares are basically smaller versions of the Ares. Between the three of them they’re replacing two older models of machine which we had been using for quite a few years. All three do roughly the same job, just with different scales of project.

So what was the reasoning behind increasing our pattern making capacity?

Over the last two or three years we’ve been outsourcing a lot of pattern work, but we’re increasingly finding a demand for machining patterns in-house. We also machine carbon fibre using these units, although the new machines are more akin to routers than milling machines. This means they’re more suited to pattern block work as the heads are slightly smaller, and work at higher speed but with less power. The pattern blocks are made of an industry standard epoxy tooling board, which is not a resistant as carbon fibre.

Almost everything you see on the car in terms of composites is made using the moulds produced by these machines, so they’re quite central to the manufacturing process. As mentioned we’re trying to bring this side of our operations more in-house. We’ll still need to outsource some of the work – it’s hard to say how much that will be, but we do send a lot of projects elsewhere currently, including a large part of the model shop’s work.

How are the machines operated?

It only takes one person to operate them, and that same person can operate multiple machines simultaneously. We have in-house programmers who create the programme for each part, with the guys on the shop floor setting the programme up on the machine and letting it run. They’re pretty autonomous pieces of equipment.

We do however need to monitor them of course. We run shift systems, and while they’re not quite running 24/7 it’s not far off. We’re hoping to move more towards ‘lights out’ machining, where we leave the programmes to run overnight unsupervised. This gives us more running time which increases productivity, and also means the guys on the floor don’t have to work so many night shifts.

Are there not safety implications from leaving machines running unobserved through the night?

There are numerous risks to this approach. For example; if a cutter gets damaged, a tool change doesn’t happen as it should do, or dust builds up around the cutter creating friction and subsequently a fire, we can end up with serious delays to the production line and potentially costly damage to the equipment.

Another issue that can arise is that when numerous jobs are nested on one machine bed – for example with the Ares which has a vast platform of 3.6 x 2.6m, allowing multiple projects to be worked in sequence – there is always the possibility that the tool can catch on a block other than the one it is meant to be cutting, thereby rendering that piece unfit for use.

How were these parts made before we had such equipment available?

I was actually a pattern maker myself when I first started here, and back then it was all done by hand using chisels, planes, spoke shaves and so on. There were very little in the way of detailed drawings, and you’d be working directly with the Chief Designer. Of course, at that time the patterns were made from wood; chiselling carbon fibre would not be an easy task! Traditionally we would make a wooden pattern and cast it in sand, before taking the pattern out, putting the moulds back together, and casting metal into the cavity, which is how the trade originated.

If that wasn’t tricky enough, a lot of the moulds actually used to be made on the car. For example, we used to create air intake ducts for turbocharges engines by hand and the only way to do this was to get the mechanics to fit the turbo to the engine, pull the floor up, and quite literally build the pattern in between the two. The car I remember doing that for specifically was the Benetton B196, so we’re going back a few years! Luckily that’s all in the past, and with the new machinery we’re talking about creating patterns in a matter of hours rather than days. It’s impressive stuff.

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