The productivity and flexibility of a newly acquired electronic lathe has transformed a small agricultural jobbing shop into a busy sub-contract operation serving a wide range of industries.

Ray Barnes Engineering of Kendal has been transformed from a small agricultural jobbing shop into a busy sub-contract operation serving a wide range of industries - thanks to the productivity and flexibility of a newly acquired Harrison Alpha 400T electronic lathe, and the ambition and determination of company owner Graham Barnes. Delivered and commissioned in July 2002 by distributor BL Gilbert of Barrow-in-Furness, the Alpha was productive on its very first day. Since then, the productivity and profitability of the Alpha has allowed the company to bid for, and win, a wide variety of machining contracts - from sophisticated 'one-offs' up to batches of 3500.

Graham Barnes recently took over the company on the retirement of his father.

Up until then, the company had been a very small operation chiefly serving the agricultural community as a small jobbing shop for over 20 years.

Barnes already knew that work from this sector - the company_s biggest earner - was in decline, in part due to the lasting effects of the foot and mouth epidemic.

Although there was some local industry in Lancaster and Kendal, chiefly the paper industry, machine fabricators and laundry equipment manufacturers, Ray Barnes Engineering was hardly equipped to make inroads in these markets - particularly for complex machining work or medium-to-large batches.

The company's production facilities comprised three elderly manual centre lathes all of which were labour intensive.

The decline in business was further compounded by a skills shortage in the Lakeland area, so the company found it difficult even to recruit to increase capacity.

Graham Barnes was left with a stark choice - do nothing and risk eventually going out of business, or invest and re-equip while chasing new business from different sectors.

Choosing the latter course of action, his first step was to consult trusted local machine tool distributor BL Gilbert and ask their advice on which machine they thought would best fit the production profile of the company.

Managing Director, Richard Gilbert's view was that the Harrison Alpha T electronic lathe was the most cost-effective option for increasing productivity and thus capacity for Ray Barnes Engineering.

Graham Barnes comments: 'I considered both the Harrison Alpha and a foreign import, however the British machine looked much more ruggedly built for the large percentage of axle machining we carry out - and if anything did go wrong with it, Harrison wasn't that far away.' Gilberts arranged to demonstrate the Alpha T at a local sub-contractor in Carlisle and then took Mr Barnes through to the Harrison factory in West Yorkshire.

There, an applications engineer programmed the Alpha from an axle drawing supplied by Graham Barnes.

Set-up took 15 minutes - a fraction of the time Barnes would have taken on one of his manual lathes and enough to convince him that the Alpha would be a considerable asset to the company.

The Alpha had an immediate effect on productivity, the company owner quickly assimilating the Alpha's CAD/CAM system and creating a complex machining routine on the very first day.

As he says: 'It's pointless to buy a machine and use it to only half its capacity.' General turning is proving to be 30-50 per cent quicker than conventional centre lathes and that has helped increase turnover considerably.

Word has also spread within the local engineering community about the company's expertise.

It has already received orders from OEMs and larger sub-contractors, aware that the Alpha is fully capable of carrying out large batch, sub-contract work to the necessary standards.

One typical job is the machining of a one metre, 200kg, fine tolerance shaft that would occupy a skilled operator for a full day using a traditional centre lathe.

With the Alpha however, the lathe is set up and left to run while the operator attends to other work.

Also there is no requirement for form tools, as radii and complex forms can be executed as simple semi or fully automated operations.

Graham Barnes sums up the Alpha T very simply: 'I can't understand why anybody would buy an ordinary centre lathe with a machine like this on the market.