hyperMILL® Sparks Success at F1 Supplier
Erode All | High Wycombe (Buckinghamshire), United Kingdom
When Glen Tavender and Dave Moore acquired subcontract wire and spark erosion company Erode All, the small business was dedicated to serving the mold & die industry with press tooling. The ‘have-a-go’ attitude of the company’s partners saw the business shift from the declining press tooling market to encompass more flexible general machining.
From subbing out work, the company acquired a number of 3-axis machine tools that rapidly brought a shift in workload and in particular a lucky break with an F1 team to produce a component. The successful project brought additional F1 work and the incestuous industry soon noted Erode All working with a number of F1 teams. The Erode All workload is now 80% F1 focused and 20% dedicated to medical work with the business supplying virtually every team on the F1 starting grid.
Investment in 5-axis technology
The success has arrived credit to employee dedication and investment in a series of high end DMG machine tools, with the latest acquisition a 10-pallet Mikron UCP600 machining centre arriving in November. This investment in 5-axis technology was a necessity for machining the extremely complex F1 components. However, such investment demands CAD/CAM software that is also of the highest quality and capability. For this, the High Wycombe based company invested in the hyperMILL® CAD/CAM package.
“We are now confident that any job we program will be 100% right first time with excellent component quality.“
Glen Tavender, Company Partner
First class competitors were all using hyperMILL®
As company partner Mr Glen Tavender says: “We were taking on complex work that our 3-axis software was finding difficult to cope with. We have some first class competitors making extremely difficult parts and they were all using OPEN MIND’s hyperMILL®. We also investigated our customers – the F1 teams, and some of them were also using hyperMILL®. We cannot feasibly quantify the benefits of the system, however it was installed in October 2007 and following the bedding in period we had our four best months of business ever from January to April 2008. Our business grew by 25%. More than just a coincidence, we knew the hyperMILL® package played a major part in this.”
The leading F1 CAD/CAM package
As Mr Tavender states: “I have been programming for over 20 years and hyperMILL® is superior to anything I’ve ever seen. Virtually all the F1 teams use hyperMILL®. When teams visit our facility and realise we use hyperMILL®, they immediately recognise that we have invested in the leading F1 CAD/CAM package. This immediately highlights the fact that we can deliver outstanding quality – and fast. It gives the racing teams confidence that they have selected a professional and competent supplier.”
Customer Story
Erode All
High Wycombe, UK