Turnkey solutions and partnerships  

30 July 2010

‘Anyone can sell a machine tool, and 30% of the time that’s exactly what we do - straight out of the box’ says DMG UK managing director Richard Watkins. ‘However, in the remainder of cases we carry out some level of turnkey engineering and the amount of additional work we are being asked to do has increased considerably in recent years.

Apparently it is not only the likes of Rolls-Royce and BAe Systems that expect this level of project management, but also companies in the supply chain from first-tier suppliers right down to the smallest subcontractor. In addition to the aerospace sector, motorsport and medical customers have an appetite for full turnkeys as their needs are similar, based around the production of complex parts having maximum strength and minimum weight.

DMG, says Watkins,  has had to evolve as a company to meet this need. To this end, the company works closely with leading suppliers of complementary production technologies under informal partnership agreements. Siemens, Hexagon Metrology and Dormer Tools are among the companies that regularly provide input to DMG’s turnkey solutions.

Additionally, Red Bull Racing is a prime example of a customer that has appointed DMG as an Innovation Partner, through which high-end applications are developed for the benefit of all DMG machine users worldwide. Appointed as an Innovation Partner to Red Bull Racing in 2005, DMG renewed the agreement at MACH 2010.  It followed a review of the association between the two companies over the past five years and heralds an increase in the scope of technological input that DMG will provide. Steve Nevey, Red Bull Racing’s Business Development Manager, comments: ‘Our successful ongoing relationship with DMG has prompted a redefinition and significant uplift in what the supplier does for us. It is the exclusive provider of machining centres and CNC lathes to the main machine shop at our Milton Keynes manufacturing centre, where there are now 15 machines installed.

‘What we look for in our Innovation Partners is not just technical input, but business solutions to complex production needs.  In DMG’s case, this encompasses supply of the most up-to-date machine tools, guidance as to their best usage, full back-up including machine calibration, and wide ranging input to manufacturing strategies, programs and tool selection.’

‘The needs of an F1 team stretches our company, both in the UK and at our parent group in Germany, which is fully behind this initiative,’ says Watkins. ‘Red Bull Racing regularly machines a diverse range of materials from aluminium through magnesium and steel to stellite alloys and composites. It certainly keeps us on our toes, but is hugely rewarding for us too as it extends our knowledge of machining exotic materials and allows us to share this best practice across Europe and the rest of the world.’

The other benefit DMG receives from the arrangement is being able to take customers to a highly advanced machine shop in a technologically advanced and glamorous environment operating 15 of its machine tools in the south east of England. Latest to be installed at the Milton Keynes centre was a DMU 125P DuoBlock 5-axis machining centre with 1,250 x 1,000 x 1,000mm working envelope.  Installed in April this year, it is the first of DMG’s new style of machine to be supplied to Red Bull.

DMG’s evolution has also been based on strengthening its engineering infrastructure both in the UK and at the company’s manufacturing facilities in Germany. In CADCAM, for example, while the company works closely with all of the big names in the industry such as Delcam and Open Mind, its support for Unigraphics users is unsurpassed in the industry, claims Watkins. He points out that there are two Unigraphics/NX programmers available in the UK to work on customer projects and more in Germany that can be called upon. They regularly take a customer’s drawing and produce solid models of the component and of the fixturing, prepare the part programs, check them using Vericut simulation software and then post-process the programs. Not many machine tool suppliers can successfully achieve that, he says.

It is noteworthy in this connection that DMG has a special relationship with Siemens, in that the machine tool manufacturer is the largest customer worldwide for Siemens control systems and drives.  As NX was developed by associate company Siemens PLM, it gives DMG unrivalled access to the engine that powers Unigraphics’ mechanical CAD/CAM/CAE applications.