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Edgecam helps Kelman Engineering squeeze more out

When Mark Kelman decided to expand his thriving engineering business to offer
customers a full ‘one-stop shop’ service, he knew that it needed significant investment. Part of that investment strategy involves Planit’s market-leading CAD/CAM software, Edgecam.

With its head office in Turriff, Aberdeenshire, Kelman Engineering Limited (KEL) has grown from a small enterprise into a well run, forward thinking fabrication company with established quality ethics and a wealth of engineering experience. It is a truly diverse business that not only designs and manufactures its own products but also provides engineering subcontract services to many industry sectors, such as oil and gas, marine, road and rail transport, construction and perimeter security products.

In December 2008, the opportunity to purchase a traditional heavy engineering facility complete with a paint plant based in Brechin, just 30 minutes South of Aberdeen, presented itself and Mark Kelman boldly made the investment decision. The company is now refurbishing the fabric of its buildings and updating machine tools, all of which had been lacking any investment from the previous owners.

Operations manager Ross Milne, explains: “During the first year Mark Kelman invested heavily in the company to save what he could of the loyal customer base. All of the old junk that had accumulated onsite was removed. And one of the first steps towards our improvement was getting rid of the old manual machine tools. We are now replacing the older CNC machine tools. This will take some time as we use big machines due to the nature of our work, and we remove a lot of material with heavy cuts, so the old machines had suffered from a lack of servicing and maintenance.”

During this time the company also purchased Edgecam’s solid modelling CAD/CAM software from Planit. With the efficiency gains available from the new machine tools being programmed by Edgecam the machine shop has been condensed considerably. Although the old machine shop unit is being used during the transition, to ensure customers get their parts on time, plans are in place for a fully equipped modern shop to house the machines.

With 13 acres of land available, the potential for development is significant and
the business plan includes open and dry storage facilities for oil companies’ parts to be held prior to, and after, any maintenance and overhaul work.

Both Ross Milne and machine shop manager Mariusz Marcinkowski, use Edgecam to program the company’s machines. Ross Milne says: “The new machine tools allow the speeds and feeds input into the Edgecam program to become the actual cutting data. This certainly could not be done with our older machines. Also, Edgecam’s Job Manager allows us to establish task files with photographic images of how the component should be set up for each operation on the machine. This makes the setting that much quicker and ensures consistency from one batch to the next. It also helps us remove the legacy mindset of the operators carried over from the previous company ownership, where jobs were taking 3 to 4 hours to set up.”

Completed Edgecam CAM files are transferred to the company server and are pulled down to the machine tools by the operators via a DNC link. To keep the flexibility on the shopfloor, CAM files can be altered by qualified operators and sent back via the DNC link. These files are then compared by Mariusz Marcinkowski before any decisions are made to save the changes. These master CAM files will then be the only ones available to the shopfloor to control any future design revisions.

The NC code for every program is simulated within Edgecam to ensure there are no collision points and that the tool will not gouge the raw material, which protects both the machine and the component. “We very rarely have a spindle crash, which is the bonus of Edgecam,” Ross Milne says. “And, with Edgecam optimising the cycle time and the new VMC capable of running to those parameters, we have reduced the time required for one job from 26 minutes to just 6 minutes.”

Supporting 64 staff in the workshop, Kelman Engineering has two seats of Edgecam solid to program the CNC machine tools via the wireless DNC link supplied by Planit’s MCS division.

The company also uses five seats of Autodesk Inventor, AutoCAD LT and AutoCAD Mechanical supplied and supported by Planit Software.

Ross Milne points out that the type of work undertaken has changed from high volume parts to more bespoke projects, which can take weeks to finish. By using Inventor and Edgecam the company is ensuring that it can offer exactly what their customers require. “Own products, such as car compactors/crushers are fabricated with some machined parts, and customers are providing feedback on features that they want to see on the machines. Adding these will generate a great deal of interest from a wider customer base, and they are designed using Inventor to give visual files before transferring to Edgecam to generate the manufacturing program,” he says.

Marine projects include onsite ship work at Aberdeen and Montrose docks for the mobilisation and de-mobilisation of redundant or damaged equipment from a vessel deck and its replacement with new or modified structures. A large project completed by the company involved the design and manufacture of a deck mounted cable drum system for laying subsea fibre optic communication cables on the seabed.

“Most contract work comes in for quotation as PDF files,” Ross Milne says. “Although we can sometimes request the DXF files, the customers are investing in solid modelling software from various suppliers but we can open their files in Inventor before programming the parts for machining using Edgecam. We have long-term projects for the rail industry, that offer potential future savings when they are programmed using Edgecam solid.”

He concludes: “The company has invested in difficult times with old machines and rundown buildings, and the first year is always the hardest. However, we are through that and moving forward in a positive way with a one-stop shop service. It’s true to say that the more we do as a company the more we will do in Inventor and Edgecam.”
 

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