Control & Automation
Your dedicated specialist for factory automation.
For the last 60 years the world’s No. 1 in factory automation has been at the forefront of innovation,
continually pushing back the boundaries of automation to increase productivity and drive down
costs across a whole range of industries. Boasting 99.9% reliability, a customer-centric approach,
world-class service and infinite solutions for industrial robots, CNC systems and purpose-built
machines for wire cut EDM, electric injection moulding and milling and drilling, we’re there to
help you make the most of your automation. All you need is yellow.
www.fanuc.eu
Being a small company Wilks needed to be certain
that any machinery investment would yield a return
relatively quickly
Scott Berry – Joint Managing Director: Wilks is a 25 strong, family run, manufacturing company
specialising in the supply of PVC profiles globally to the Marine and Shop fitting industries. With a senior
tool maker due for retirement later this year it seemed the ideal time to investigate ways in which we
might improve our tool making process compared to our traditional use of turret milling machines.
F
anuc had come highly
recommended to us and
following a meeting with
Andy Spence to discuss our
requirement we immediately felt that we
had found a long term partner for our tool
room rather than simply making a oneoff machinery purchase. Being a small
company we needed to be certain that any
machinery investment would yield a return
relatively quickly and would not create a
bottleneck in tooling schedules whilst new
skills were developed.
Our minimal CNC and CAD experience
was of initial concern to us but with the
Fanuc’s reassurance, demonstrations
and ultimately a training course at their
UK Headquarters we felt enthused and
confident in both our own ability to deliver
as well as having purchased the right
machine to work with.
Immediately following our training the
Robocut was put to work. A die that would
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have previously taken 40 hours to produce
was programmed and set in 2 hours and
cut within a further 16 hours. A time
saving of over 50%. Even more impressive
was that the tooling ran first time when
trialled on our extrusion line and without
need of tuning. The saved man hours can
be spent on other areas such as R&D,
product trials, tuning of tooling or the
design of new dies. We are now working
more efficiently and experience can only
see things improve further still.
Surprisingly the step-up has been very
simple too… we only wish we had followed
this path years ago. The dies we make
are now accurate within microns and the
speed of manufacture has been cut by
approximately 50%. Now we have our
Fanuc Robocut there is no looking back.