Big names, big gains!

Mike Richardson witnesses first-hand, the sheer size and scale of CMS Industries’ seemingly Olympian range of specialised CNC machining centres currently being assembled at its Northern Italian headquarters.

 

Walking around CMS Industries’ vast machine tool manufacturing and assembly facility, located in an Italian valley a short drive from Bergamo, I’m struck by the incredible variety of different types of CNC machines undergoing various stages of construction. Indeed, no one machine appears to be the same; it’s almost as if they are built entirely bespoke, depending on the customers’ requirements.

Poseidon, Ares, Cronus, Athena – the company’s range of products reads like a ‘who’s who’ list of Greek mythological gods. I’m always interested in companies that employ colourful and imaginatively-titled equipment with the names of characters that have featured in exciting fantasy films like Jason and the Argonauts and Clash of the Titans.

Established in 1969, CMS provides CNC equipment for a wide variety of markets manufacturing aluminium and composite materials, among others. The company’s technical research & development and constant innovation help ensure that its products remain at the forefront of technological advances.

For the aerospace sector, CMS’ 3- and 5-axis CNC machine tool range is designed to satisfy the requirements for high-speed machining applications that cover carbon fibre machining, composite trimming and drilling and honeycomb machining, structural aluminium aerospace components, the machining of stacked aluminium sheet, and pattern & mould, tooling and prototype production. For larger work envelopes with higher Z axis capacity, CMS offers its Poseidon and Cronus range of gantry milling machines, with X axis travel beyond 60,000mm and Y axis up to 10,000mm. Choices of spindle up to 44kW are said to enable the delivery of high levels of torque at lower rpm.

“Our customers tend to want the flexibility and customisation of a CNC machine tool, and not a machine that is simply standard and off-the-shelf,” begins company sales manager, Giulio Gasparini. “They prefer a machine solution that is tailored to their specific application. Many of our customers are buying their second or third machine, so they’ve learnt more about what could be a better fit for a specific solution, or they want to complement something that builds on what they already have, i.e. customisation involving the configuration of a machine’s vacuum table for example. We build standard modularised components all the time, but beyond this, we’re able to perform a certain amount of machine tool customisation to suit the customers’ specific needs.

“Aerospace companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin produce carbon fibre wing skin components on our machining centres. There are many UK SME companies producing aircraft interior and seating components. The majority of Boeing 787 Dreamliner and B777 interior parts are made on our machines, and the curved composite panels located near the cabin windows are cut and trimmed on our machines, as are all the overhead luggage bins. Our customers are also involved in engine nacelles and carbon fibre engine blade manufacture.”

Mechanically-minded people

Gasparini says that historically, CMS has employed local people based in the valley who are traditionally very hard working – many of whom have been with the company for 20-25 years: “We’re fortunate that in this region, it is easy to find good mechanically-minded people with the right mentality and flair for applications and customisation.”

CMS plans to launch a new 5-axis CNC machining centre this year. In a departure from the usual ‘god-naming’ taxonomy, the company has decided to christen this one the ‘Ikon’. Designed for fast, accurate volume composite and aluminium machining, perhaps what’s most eye-catching about the Ikon twin vertical rotating table machine I’m stood in front of is its two vertical mounted tables, each 3,100mm x 1,800mm with rotational movement that takes place in and out of the machining envelope. Said to help facilitate ergonomic and efficient loading/unloading of components during the machining cycle, each table benefits from an integrated vacuum clamping system and zero-point location system, which simplifies fixture change and location as well as significantly reducing change over times between batches.

“In addition to the new Ikon machine, we’ve updated our top of the range Cronus portal machines,” Gasparini continues. “For the smaller versions, we’ve also updated the structure and improved many of the components, plus we’ve named our new high end version, Ethos. The rigidity has been dramatically improved whilst the cutting performance will be significantly enhanced to provide CMS customers with even more productivity gains.”

I ask Gasparini what differentiates CMS from the competition; it’s sheer breadth of machine tool variety springs to mind. He first points to the company’s levels of experience and customisation.

“We offer customer advice for the complete machine tool package, i.e. the machine, the configuration, the accessories, tooling and extraction systems. Secondly, despite being a fairly large company, we’re well-organised in terms of our product documentation and our methodologies. If you were to ask us how one of our machines was built 20-years ago, we’re able to demonstrate that we have it fully-documented and on file. We also place a lot of emphasis on the importance of local support in terms of not only our knowledge of the application, but also our machine and our ability to support them.”

Stop, look and listen

And in terms of the company’s business challenges this year, my visit to the CMS facility coincides with a major move-around of its buildings and plant refurbishment. “This year’s task is to finish the construction of the new buildings and relocate our existing site into them. We will finally have the space to organise production in a more efficient way,” adds Gasparini.

To some, it may appear like a Herculean effort to continue designing and building such a vast array of fully-customised CNC machine tools, but CMS Industries has the Midas touch when it comes to satisfying its customers’ unique demands.

“We always listen to our good customers because often, some of the more innovative ones will approach us asking for something entirely new and out of the box,” Gasparini concludes. “Because we trust them, we’ll design a machine for a specific application that may sometimes appear crazy or very unusual, but end up starting a new production trend within the market. CMS is very good at finding new ideas, but it’s even better at listening to customers.”

www.cmsindustries.it