Bowers Group has decided to perform a site merger of the Bowers Metrology and Baty Measuring Instruments. Currently Baty does not manufacture any parts apart from small modifications using basic manual tools meaning all of the components are currently sub-contracted out to other manufacturers. Due to the recent improvements from the Production Engineering team there has been some capacity created on work centres for manufacturing further parts, Therefore it would only be logical to assess the feasibility of performing inhouse manufacturing on some parts within out capability (K2) (B2)

For the assessment technique we will be using the Practical Problem Solving (PPS) technique of arriving at a series of conclusions based on heuristic assessment of feasibility and deeper investigation on an individual level. Although the PPS is not operating within a framework exactly the technique used throughout is a clear and precise. (K1) (S3)

The goal is to have most parts understood and assessed by December of 2023 with myself being the sole producer of all documentation herein (K15) (B4) (B5)

Firstly, performing a basic analysis of the subcontract manufacturing gives us a brief insight into what kind of numbers we are dealing with

There are 7 main companies performing a number of manufacturing processes totalling approximately £200,000 with a few problems associated with each.

  • Newcom - Always late on deadlines. This can cause holdups meaning lead-times for finished machines are either inaccurate or extensive. Solving this through having a buffer stock can be costly as its one of the 6 wastes we want to avoid
  • MMK Engineering - In personal experience these castings are absolutely rubbish. They are often missing holes or simply drilled in the wrong place probably due to bad document process control.
  • KW Geere - Could be shutting up shop soon so although a price reduction benefit would be nice simply taking it inhouse or getting quotes from other manufacturers should be a priority.

This can be further derived into a SWOT analysis

(S2)

Looking at the work centres and using the data from SAP we can get a rough idea of what kind of capacity is available

For the MVJNR the machine has been decommissioned as of early 2023 so the capacity is now divided between the VF4SS and the Mikron, Therefore the actual capacity of the work centres is a little bit lower. (K21)

Furthermore a lot of the capacity of the MVJNR is actually pretty over estimated as its generally been a side job for the general production. Now with the milling department being moved to the Specials area its possible to achieve much higher total utilisation (K23)

Collecting drawings

Exporting the data from SAP we get a list of all bought in parts. Based off the order raised history we we can see the requirements

Above is a list of the list of units with the most expensive cost per unit. A list of all the drawings are added to the and then I began working through each drawing first by getting the approximate dimensions of the material and also what type of material it would be.

This then lets me create a shortlist of parts what are easy to manufacture based on a number of criteria

  • Dimensions of Parts
  • Material Dimensions
  • Yearly Quantity
  • Price per unit

Parts highlighted in red are untenable to justify manufacturing due to factors such as them being cast iron, too large or too little volume. Parts highlighted in green are possibly optimal for manufacture therefore I took the drawings and elected to model them up in Autodesk Inventor. Here is the first preliminary list of parts I elected to model

The first part I then chose to get a manufacturing estimate on was the RH400-016 INTERMEDIATE FOCUS SLIDE. Currently it a machined casting from aluminium but due to the cost of machining it could probably just come from a machined down block using HSM capabilities and have a comparable manufacturing time. The process then becomes a standard operating procedure of picking parts, modelling them and assessing the manufacturing cost this is done systematically to produce a consistent result (K10) (K15) (S4)

Currently the drawing is not very good as its based off the casting. With some reverse engineering we can then create a 3D model For our manufacturing process we want to move away from a casting of lightweight material due to the lead times and low quality.(K6) As we are given a machined block and surface for manufacturing we then can directly say this will improve in the quality of the product due to better tolerance control (K7) (K14) (S10)

Information was extracted from the drawing to re-create a 3d representation of the model part. (K22) (S1) Once this model has been created we can avoid directly sourcing material by getting an estimated quote from Xometry using the ISO 2768 standard for tolerancing (K5)

All working projects are stored in the Baty machined parts are inside the Baty migration folder for the factory changeover. (S8)

Parts are further assessed for correctness in collaboration with the Design department to ensure parts are correct before put into final phase manufacturing, A good relationship of trust must be established to allow reasonable process (B6)(S6)

Then we can export the model into Fusion 360 and begin estimating a cycle time for manufacture (S9)

For the manufacturing techniques we will make use of High Speed Machining (herein; HSM) to allow for better material removal rates

  • Machining at a high cutting speed (vc).
  • Machining with a high spindle speed (n).
  • Machining with a high feed rate (vf).
  • Machining with a high removal rate (Q). These techniques and the maths involved (K9) will improve the quality, speed and tool life in the manufacturing process (B3)

Furthermore machine operators cannot produce as efficient tool paths as a CAM system and this can reduce performance of the cutting tool and lower the quality of the workpiece (K13)

Post manufacturing parts will be handed to the quality department for inspection. Based on the drawing issues these tolerances will be strongly adhered to and measured using a series of instruments such as Callipers, Micrometres and Bore Gauges (K20) This is the formally documented process of the integration and manufacture of a new component inside of Bowers QMS (S5)

For the the given part of RH400-316 they will be produced in small batches, At Bowers 99% of our current work is produced in batch processes. There are some exceptions for production with Kanban flow style. Generally the application of batch flow is most appropriate due to the volume, machining and setup time (K19)

Once the part has been assessed for manufacturability and costing. If the price is right we can move forward with creating a new associated drawing of that part which will then be controlled by the Design department using the SOP of manufacturing (S6)