Nov 2019 - 18: Guhring has something special

In June 2017, Guhring officially opened its new 60,000sq/ft manufacturing facility on Birmingham's Advanced Manufacturing Hub.

The new £12 million UK headquarters of the globally renowned German-owned cutting tool manufacturer was opened for Guhring to realise its growth ambitions.

The previous Castle Bromwich facility was home to Guhring UK for more than 40 years and the growth over the decades had certainly pushed the capacity of the facility to its limits.

At the time of the move, Guhring had a market split of 70% of standard products and 30% of UK manufactured special tooling.

In the last two years, Guhring has invested in a host of additional technology and staff at the 3.5-acre site to meet the increased demand for special tooling.

What does this mean for the landscape of the transformed business model?

Standard product sales have grown year on year over the last two years.

But it's the increased capacity that has really given Guhring the impetus to drive its special tools and projects, application and engineering services.

Special tools and projects now account for 45% of sales/turnover at Guhring UK.

The relentless growth of the special tooling and applications division isn't only testament to investment in new technology and staff, but also capabilities that stretch far beyond that of most UK cutting tool manufacturers.

Guhring UK’s National Sales Manager, Dave Hudson says: “We will design the tool and then send the customer a quote with a cost breakdown and a manufacturing time that could be a number of days up to a number of weeks depending upon the production criteria.

Once the customer has this data, they will place an order and we will provide the end user with a drawing, which they will sign-off.

Once this is signed-off and agreed upon with an order number, we will expedite the project to our manufacturing team.”

“From a consultation perspective, our sales engineers will talk to the end user and discus the best route forward.

In many instances, a customer will be using 2, 3 or 4 tools to complete a process that can be achieved by a single tool.

Right from the initial discussion, our engineers are looking at how to reduce the number of tools in the process, reduce the number of tool changes and the impact on cycle times.

For situations like that, there may be a marked improvement on the component quality with regards to concentricity and surface finish.

This can be a critical factor where a number of tools are entering a bore and potentially creating a mis-match.”

“At the end of the day, a lot of people say they prefer to use standard tools, but a standard tool is often a ‘compromise tool’.

This is because it can be used for several operations whereas a special tool is dedicated to one process.

However, if you are undertaking series production or running a part over 3-4 years or more, why not tailor the tools to the component?”

“At Guhring, we use the Cutview software program.

This allows us to input the specific process and all the relevant cutting data and prepare production time studies, performance, torque and feed cutting force data that will all be relevant to the specific machine tool and workholding configurations.

By generating data that is tailored to the exact working parameters and capability of the machine tool and set-up, we can provide very detailed performance information.

At this point, more often than not; the cost of the tool is not a consideration – its all about the available benefits.

We can estimate the cycle time calculations very accurately with the Cutview software before the tool ever makes a cut.”

“By detailing cost-per-piece reductions, cycle time savings and tool cost reductions, the software often provides a ‘eureka’ moment for manufacturers.

The software also accounts for the re-grind process and when built into the same equation, the benefits of Guhring special tools are evident.”

“For example, we were working on a tool project for an automotive O-E-M in the UK and we were working to a tool life target of 200 metres, the reason for this was MQL machining.

Additionally, if you have 10 machines running the same process, you want consistent tool life rather than changing tools halfway through a shift.

This customer needed the 200 meters tool life, so the tool changes would coincide with a shift changeover.

We could have offered different parameters, but this O-E-M had specific targets and we worked according to the given data.”

Referring to the extensive nature of the in-house services and in particular the coating department, Dave Hudson says: “We will rationalise the process and with our in-house coating facility, our engineers will discuss the best route forward for the end user.

If you are machining aluminium, you may not coat the tool and opt for a polished tool finish or it may be a choice of our Zenit coating that is a non-stick hard coating for titanium and aluminium alloys.

If customers are working on steel and hard materials, we have our Fire coating grade.

The beauty of what we have here at Guhring UK is the ability to offer more than 10 different coatings.

A lot of the coatings have been designed and developed by Guhring for specific applications and tools – they are not available from other suppliers.”

“In contrast to selecting coatings, our engineers can look at a process and if a customer has a high spindle speed and the material suits P-C-D tooling, this is another avenue we can provide as an alternative to H-S-S or carbide tooling.

Likewise, the development of P-C-D tooling can all be done in-house using the same platforms and processes as carbide tooling.

This is something that very few tooling companies can provide. We can cover every eventuality.”

The Guhring UK facility that's just a stone throw away from Aston Villa Football Club also has an in-house technical centre.

Commenting on this, Dave Hudson says: “We are now using our in-house technical centre more and more.

It gives us an opportunity to trial our products based on the cutting data provided by the Cutview software platform.

We’ve machined parts to the parameters in Cutview and this allows us to prove that what we say in theory, also works in practice.

The beauty of the technical centre is having the ability to get on machines and do the trials that customers cannot undertake as they do not have the spare time or machine capacity for trials.”

“Our colleagues in Germany have more than 5 machines with high-speed cameras, M-Q-L, electron microscopes for inspecting tools and parts plus a range of different machine types with varying performance criteria .

With our growth trajectory, we could be aiming at the same type of facility in the UK.”

The process doesn’t end with product delivery, and life-cycle management is a process that Guhring is conscious of.

According to Dave Hudson “Once the tool has completed the process and been shipped to the customer, there are often discussions over additional order quantities and potential costs.

For example, a customer may receive one tool and then decide they need 5, 10 or more.

At this point, we can schedule the order quantities and delivery dates to meet the manufacturing needs of that customer.

This often gives the customer two things. Firstly, a better price point and secondly, it provides a continuity of supply.”

“This is critically important for scenarios where the customer may break the tool, have a machine crash or encounter other unforeseen circumstances.

The security we offer customers sees us hold more than £1m of special tools on our shelves in the UK.

To bolster this security and customer confidence is our ability to service, re-tip, re-grind, re-coat and re-supply used tools in brand new condition.

Having an all-encompassing state-of-the-art manufacturing site enables us to provide service levels that far exceed the levels provided by other tooling companies.”

Referring to the performance of the special division since the factory move, Dave Hudson concludes:

“The performance of our special tool division in the last two years has grown considerably, which is outperforming the impressive growth of our standard product lines.

Our continued investment in new technology on site will ensure we remain at the forefront of special tool production in the UK.”