Member Article

European Springs invests in new Bruderer machine

Investment in a new high-speed precision press made is already paying dividends for one of the UK’s leading spring and pressings specialists after it announced 10% growth in 2016 and the creation of 35 new jobs.

European Springs & Pressings Ltd, which provides springs, wire forms, pressings and assemblies to a global client base, has secured a string of new orders after tapping into the machinery expertise of Birmingham-based Bruderer UK.

The acquisition of the high-speed precision BSTA 500-110 press gives it a much larger press bed area (1.1metres) for multi-progression tooling of complex processes and the high precision construction of the machine offers reduced die wear, especially on high tensile spring quality materials.

The latest B control system of the press has also reduced set-up times, which shortens time to market on new products and improves efficiency on small volume production batches.

This capability has already seen the Beckenham-based firm win new business in automotive, aerospace, electronics and power distribution sectors.

“We have experienced significant growth through the acquisition of a number of new product programmes, requiring us to invest in a more flexible machine that offered speed, accuracy and repeatable quality,” explained Stuart McSheehy, Managing Director of European Springs, who is part of the Lesjöfors group.

“I gave a ‘wishlist’ to Bruderer UK, who sat down with us, examined what we needed from the new press and recommended the BSTA 500-110, promising it could be operational from January 2016.”

He continued: “The machine worked straight out of the box, which is rare in our industry. Performance has been very impressive and not only are we delivering on orders already won, but actually going out and competing for work that we couldn’t previously have taken on.

“Sales are up to £16m across our three sites in London, Cornwall and Leeds, and our workforce now stands at 170, five of whom are apprentices going through a training programme that has been tailored to suit our current and future needs.”

The BSTA 500-110 is one of the world’s most advanced high-speed precision presses, and comes with semi-automatic stroke length adjustment, the latest in control technology and dynamic ram correction; the latter guaranteeing bottom dead centre accuracy.

European Springs was able to work with Bruderer UK to make slight modifications to the machine, including the addition of an acoustic sound booth and integration of ‘Unidor’ tool and press monitoring technology.

The latter – along with a full servicing and maintenance package - is guaranteed to extend the life of the press and increase machine productivity in the process.

Adrian Haller, Managing Director of Bruderer UK, commented: “Our BSTA 500-110 has been developed to tackle complex production processes, which makes it ideal for prototyping or the introduction of new products.

“This is clearly evident with European Springs & Pressings and I’m delighted to see it has had an immediate positive impact on new business secured in a relatively short period of time.”

He went on to add: “2016 has also been a good year for our order book, with more than 15 machines sold and the UK launch of the BSTA 410-110 at the ‘MACH Show’ generating a great deal of interest.”

Stuart concluded: “We have been very impressed with the Bruderer approach and its level of support, so much so that we have just commissioned the company to complete a full refurbishment and update of an existing Finzer multi-slide machine that we use to form strip and wire components.

“If this works out well, we will refurbish and update all 6 production machines to the same specification.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Russ Cockburn .