Following a management buy-out in 2014, Bright Engineering has flourished with business turnover almost doubling in the last two years and over £1m spent on machine tools in the last 18 months. The Lancashire subcontract manufacturer that produces precision components, sub-assemblies and supply chain management solutions is having somewhat of a purple patch, which can be attributed to its business strategy, highly energetic team and a continuous investment strategy.
Producing components for the aerospace, defense, semi- conductor and electronic industries to name a few, the solution provider to high-tech industry sectors has also invested in CAM software from Autodesk. The Nelson based machine shop has no fewer than 17 CNC machines from the likes of Mazak, Doosan and Citizen with capability ranging from twin-pallet horizontals, mill/turn twin-spindles and sliding head turning centres right down to more conventional CNC machine tools. All these machine tools are now driven more efficiently, thanks to Autodesk’s FeatureCAM software.

The Managing Director of Bright Engineering, Mr Jon Hoyle, says: “Since we invested in Autodesk, we’ve been able to grow our order book by over 100% and even in the last 12 months in a more uncertain climate, we’ve grown our order book by 20%. Throughout this, Autodesk has been there for us as a partner and this is really what we were looking for when we were choosing our next CAD/CAM software supplier.”
“We first came across Autodesk a few years back at the Southern Manufacturing trade show and then we followed this by meeting the Autodesk team at the Mazak Open House event. That is where we had our first proper introduction to Autodesk and some of its packages like FeatureCAM.”
“One of our biggest challenges as a business is reacting to the demands of customers in a timely manner. We are building long-term agreements in a number of sectors, which is helping, but we still need to be reactive in certain markets. Getting the right skills, capacity and technology is the biggest challenge. We are using FeatureCAM ultimate as our main CAD/CAM solution and this is supporting us in tackling these challenges,” continues Mr Hoyle.

Continuing the positive reference to Autodesk,
Production Director at the AS: 9100 (rev D) and ISO: 9001 business, Mr Nigel Jenkins says: “Now that we have the FeatureCAM software, it enables us to program parts, plan our workflow and pre-plan our tooling configurations a lot quicker than we previously could with our old system. Generally, it’s a lot easier to use and staff are finding it a lot faster to pick-up, learn and integrate with.”

“We can verify our models and the toolpaths very quickly before we put it into the machine, hence avoiding any potential collisions. The tool processing on the CAD/CAM package and the actual tool pass offers us more flexibility on how we tackle the job compared to how we previously have.
So, depending upon the tools available, the vices and workholding and even the machines that are available, FeatureCAM enables us to change around quickly and flexibly.”

Affirming this, Mr Jenkins continues: “Autodesk has helped us to produce a particular marine part by generating
programs very quickly as well as creating tooling and planning sheets that our engineers and setter/ operators can pre-plan and get things in place before the material is even ready to go on the machine. FeatureCAM enables us to take a model of the part and also create models around the part for fixtures and workholding. We can also use those models and produce the parts on other machines whilst one machine is doing something else. We can also use FeatureCAM to verify and cut the part to ensure there are no collisions on the machine.

In all, the step by step cycles are taken up in one large chunk, whereby the machine is left available for other parts and the time from actually programming to cutting the parts is significantly reduced.”

When asked why Bright Engineering made the decision to invest in FeatureCAM, Bright Engineering’s Production Manager, Mr Andy Webb was quick to explain: “FeatureCAM offers a range of useful programming tools to help our engineers create NC code quickly. Our team was particularly impressed with the Automatic Feature Recognition (AFR) functionality, as it allows them to produce toolpaths really quickly. We start by defining some simple machining rules that determine how we like to work. This includes things like the tools we are using, the materials we’re cutting, the machines we use and how we like to cut certain features. FeatureCAM then applies the templates to automatically identify all of the slots, pockets, bosses and holes on the job and produce all of the necessary NC programs in just a few minutes. This is something that could have taken us hours with our legacy system. Not only are the programs produced quickly, the use of these templates means we have more consistency. This results in safer, more efficient and predictable production on the shop-floor.”

To emphasise this point further, Mr Jenkins continues to explain: “Historically, a job would take 3-4 days to programme, get the material and put into the machine and cut the part. Now, what we do is get ready for the part and produce the fixtures quite simply on a lesser machine. Then we are fully prepared and capable of making the original part within a couple of hours from programming. So, the set-up and programming time is reduced by 50%. The actual cycle time on the machine is probably reduced by around 30% because of the FeatureCAM programming.” Looking toward the future, MD Mr Hoyle continues: “In the near future, we have a number of investments in mind. We’ve recently purchased a twin-pallet Mazak Variaxis machine and we’re looking forward to working with our supply chain to get that off the ground. We’ll be looking to FeatureCAM to really drive the benefits of that machine. That is likely to result in more seats of software and more collaborative work with people like Autodesk.” 

“What Autodesk has now offered us is the closest thing to a turnkey package in collaboration with the machine tool builder. So, over a period of months, Autodesk have been working very closely with one of our engineers and the machine tool builder to help us get a very crucial aerospace contract up and running in a swift and timely manner.”

“Over the last few months, we have seen some really impressive set-up time reductions and improvements to programming. We have seen upward of 50% efficiency in how long it takes for us to program a part. Further to that, Autodesk has also helped us to remove bottlenecks from our programming and setting processes. So, previously with the legacy system we were using, we had very few staff capable of programming complex parts. Autodesk has been a springboard for us with FeatureCAM. We are getting apprentices involved in programming and really moving the business forward and this is allowing us more scalability, so we can expand for the future,” concludes Mr Hoyle.