RK International takes control of £250,000 university project
RK International takes control of £250,000 university project
Keywords: Machine tools, Contracts
A major turnkey installation at Bristol Laboratories for Advanced Dynamics Engineering (BLADE) worth over £250,000 has been completed within strict timescales by RK International of Erith in Kent, UK. The machine tool supplier was not only contracted to source the relevant high technology machine tools and equipment, but it also had to strategically plan the installation and commissioning of 11 machines, perform detailed risk assessments and provide full on-site training for the different technologies involved (Plate 4).
Plate 4RK International of Erith completed a major turnkey project involving 11 machines at BLADE
The contract for the machine tool and equipment package at the University of Bristol was won against tenders submitted from six other suppliers based throughout Europe. According to Ivan Laver of the Department of Mechanical Engineering based in Bristol University, it was key factors such as the ability to single source supply and take responsibility for a diverse range of machines and technologies, meet strict criteria on financial trading history and provide a turnkey solution for installation over just 3 weeks that won the day for the Erith supplier.
The machines included a Fanuc Alpha Robocut O/B wire EDM from 600 Centre of Shepshed, a Colchester Tornado A50 chucking lathe from Colchestersales, a Harrison Alpha 460T electronic centre lathe, a four-axis Hardinge VMC 1000 II vertical machining centre with Siemens 81OD control and three of RK's own Europa Mill Tech 1500 VS turret mills with digital readouts. In addition, RK sourced and took responsibility for a Jones and Shipman hydraulic universal grinder, a tilt arbor saw bench and a planer thicknessor for woodworking as well as the source and supply of complete tooling kits and accessories for each machine.
The newly refurbished Faculty of Engineering workshop is servicing the university's six engineering departments, supporting hundreds of students on a wide range of MSc, PhD and ME and BE degree programmes. It is also heavily involved with the £18.5 million BLADE. This facility is described as the most advanced dynamics engineering research facility in Europe, providing a revolutionary cross-disciplinary approach to research that will enable leading UK scientists to work at world-class levels that cross boundaries to enhance the dynamic performance of all types of engineering systems.
Most jobs that will go through the Bristol University workshop will be single tasks or prototypes for aerospace, civil, electrical and electronic engineering. However, as the facility is also being used by the 130 engineering mathematics and mechanical engineering students, this means there will be a considerable amount of setting and programming being performed by a host of different people. As a result, the training provided by RK International was critical to the project – especially when so many different and some quite complicated machine tool disciplines were involved.
In placing the order with RK International, Mr Laver and his team considered the Erith machine tool supplier's track record for successfully completing other education, MOD and Government-related projects and in particular its ISO 9001:2000 accreditation. This experience and track record helped especially for the duration of the contract that spanned some 9 months during which RK produced and worked to a critical path network from which it set priorities. In addition,it had to ensure that health and safety regulations were fully complied with and the company had to carry out in-depth risk assessments and compile method statements.
During the project, in-depth discussions and negotiations were carried out with the other machine tool, equipment and tooling suppliers and visits arranged for Bristol University to view applications where similar machine tools were installed. RK also had to define the accessories and tooling required to satisfy the future requirements of the students for each machine. Dick Aldrich, sales Director of RK International says: “It was not a blank canvas we were working to, we had to keep a wary eye on the budget available and with so much at stake, make sure that everything was complied with against the original contract and of course maintain the strict time scales”.
Mr Laver explained how the complete installation and commissioning had to be completed against a 2-week window. “RK were meticulous in the planning and co-ordination with the arrival of the equipment set against a tight schedule. They made the project run extremely smoothly and for us it was completely stress free. We found that because of their contacts within the industry and knowledge gained from similar workshop projects they had worked on, this gave everyone involved a high level of confidence.”
Indeed, explains Mr Aldrich, because RK as a company is self-contained with its own transportation and installation engineers, this gave vital flexibility to overcome any problems that were encountered. Following installation, a contract electrician was used by the university to work with RK's engineers to wire up and test each machine and once under power, RK completed alignment checks on each machine as part of the commissioning and final sign-off.
Since hand over, the workshop has already completed a wide range of tasks on the machines – most being single jobs or prototypes in materials as diverse as aluminium, steel and nickel-based alloys. However, Mr Laver has also seen significant production runs of components to be used as specimens for the University, which have been earned out without any hitches.
Details available from: RK International Machine Tools Ltd. Tel: +44 (0)1322 447611.
Faculty of Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Bristol. Tel: +44 (0) 117 928 7748.
