Promoted Content: Intelligent manufacturing solutions halve production time of gas turbine components

Doncasters Precision Castings is a leading manufacturer of industrial gas turbine airfoils. The company has seen increased demand for its machining services, which has led to a significant investment of over £2 million in Mazak products.

The company previously used three-axis machining centres, but the processes were time-consuming and required highly skilled operators and hard fixturing. A typical nozzle component’s cycle time, including setting and machining, was four hours, which exceeded the capacity available to meet the increased demand. Furthermore, hard fixturing was viewed as expensive and obsolete by the engineering team.

Therefore, the company invested in three Mazak VORTEX i-630V/6 vertical machining centres. As part of the investment, the machines were equipped with Renishaw RMP600 high-accuracy probes, featuring patented RENGAGE™ strain gauge technology. During initial discussions, it was also recognised additional support would be required from associate company, MSP.

The challenge was to improve right-first-time machining rates and, in doing so, eliminate any potential for errors to arise and increase overall productivity.