Yellow good industry specialist invests in Mazak FJV vertical machining centre

TC Industries, a global specialist in cutting edges and wear parts for yellow goods vehicles, has installed a new Yamazaki Mazak FJV vertical machining centre at its UK facility.

The company manufactures parts for every size of earthmoving equipment, from wear plates, segments and base edges for wheel loaders and excavators, through to cutting edges and track shoes for bulldozers. Notable customers include Caterpillar.

The family-owned organisation has its global headquarters in Crystal Lake near Chicago in the United States, with additional manufacturing sites in Canada and the UK. TC Industries’ UK facility is in Skinningrove, North Yorkshire, with 100% of the site’s production going to export markets.

The Mazak FJV machining centre is designed to produce large workpieces and is primarily seeing use in drilling operations, replacing two older machines in the facility.

Paul Bird, Site Manager at Skinningrove, says the US parent company played a key role in convincing the UK management to consider Mazak technology: “Our parent company in United States has a long relationship with Mazak, with multiple machines in operation at our Crystal Lake manufacturing site. We visited the Mazak European Manufacturing Plant in Worcester and saw the FJV machine in action on the shop floor during a tour of the facility. The visit confirmed what our owners were saying about Mazak’s capabilities, both in terms of the technology and its infrastructure in the UK – specifically its service engineer network.”

In addition to drilling, the FJV’s milling and contouring capabilities were particularly important for TC Industries, specifically regarding slots that require a milling operation.

The FJV 60/160 is a high-rigidity, double-column vertical machining centre capable of machining all five faces of a workpiece in a single set up. The machine is ergonomically designed to maximise ease of operation and offers simplified conversational programming via the Mazatrol SmoothG control.

To help integrate the new machine into TC Industries’ facility, the company took full advantage of Mazak’s training courses.

Paul Bird says: “We sent two operators down to Worcester for the Smooth CNC operator and programming training. We then had operator and application training on site at Skinningrove. They’re very good courses that helped get our CNC operators up to speed very quickly on the machines and the control.”

He concludes: “Like TC Industries, Mazak is family owned with an emphasis on providing outstanding technology and customer service. That continued back-up in terms of service and support is very important to us.”