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Radan Provides Mill Stainless With Efficient Sheet Management

Based in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, Mill Stainless was originally established as a specialist stainless steel stockholder before investing in process equipment to supply customers with cut to size parts and blanks. To efficiently support this investment and maintain an exceptional level of control over its cut stock material, the company invested in Planit Software’s advanced CAD/CAM system, Radan.

The company was founded in 1978 by Richard Griggs as a stainless steel stockholder and then  in 1997 Mill Stainless invested in a plasma cutting machine.

This provided the first step into material processing and it proved so popular with customers that it was quickly followed by the purchase of a laser profiling machine. Alongside these profiling machines the company approached Radan to provide a common platform to program both.

Company director, Richard Orviss, says: “We invested in Radan in 1999 complete with bespoke post processors for each machine. These worked well and our relationship with the CAD/CAM specialist grew  - we are happy with the software and with Planit’s support.”

Recently the 22-strong company replaced its original laser with a newer, more efficient Bystronic 4.4 kW CO2 laser unit which cuts stainless steel up to 20 mm thick. With the demand for the plasma machine dropping off as customers wanted more accurately cut thick plate, a waterjet cutting machine was installed three years ago. The waterjet machine will profile any material up to 300 mm thick, including paper, glass, plastics and so on. “In fact,” says Richard Orviss, “we have yet to come across a material it will not cut. For any material from 0.5 mm thick up to 100 mm thick we have the correct machine to cut it.”

Seeking the maximum in material utilisation the company invested in a pressbrake, using the advanced RadbendCNC module.

Their work as a jobbing shop can be batch sizes from one offs up to 1000s. Their customer’s sketches or dimensioned 2D drawings/electronic DXF/DWG files are opened in Radan to create the part and check the geometry. Radan then generates a nest prior to sending it to the laser machine to optimise material usage. The sheets for the waterjet cutter are drawn in Radan, although it is programmed using its own Igems software because of the twin-head design of the machine. The file is exported from Radan to the waterjet machine’s control software. The twin-head design keeps the cost of the cut to a minimum by cutting two parts at the same time.

Richard Orviss enthuses:  “A great thing about Radan is its sheet management, which is why no other CAD/CAM company can touch the software as far as we are concerned. We don’t wait for a full sheet before we cut it. If a customer wants one part we will load a sheet and cut the part. Once cut we have to know what has been taken out of the sheet and what remains, and Radan is the only software that does this perfectly. Radan provides a print out of what the skeleton sheet looks like in the rack - other software would want you to square off remnant sheets - but we need to see what it actually looks like.”

Staff at Mill Stainless worked with Radan to achieve this level of control – the team at Planit Professional Services wrote some bespoke macros to perfect the sheet management, which is vital to the success that Mills Stainless has achieved.  Says Richard Orviss: “We could not cope any other way. Radan maximises our sheet utilisation and keeps an accurate record of any processed nests, along with the parts cut.”

Although the Igems software is used to generate the motion control for the waterjet machine, when the cut is finished the operator exports the file back to Radan so the plate management is updated correctly through Radan. “So we don’t have to open two different software packages to see what plate stock we have available. It’s important for us to know what stock we have because if we promise something we always deliver on it,” Richard Orviss explains.

He continues: “The accuracy of the sheet management provided by Radan is quantified during our stock takes, which are conducted twice per year. Considering we move around 200 tonnes per year, thanks to Radan our stock control is very good, it works very well.”

Mill Stainless supports general engineering businesses and the local food production industry, including machinery manufacturers and food handling equipment, as well as the petrochemical and marine industries. Customers range from small one man companies right up to household names.

“We use a schedule board to show what is planned to be cut on which day,” Richard Orviss says. “Two years ago we had two weeks visibility, with 5 to 7 day deliveries being the norm. Now we operate a one week board and customers can typically expect a two or three day turnaround. As well as the sheet management, Radan provides cycle times based on outer perimeter and holes cut and we use that data to generate an accurate quote. This is vital with such short lead times.”

Radan NC programs are transferred by a hardwire DNC link to the machines from the company’s server. No parts are programmed at the machine because it would create an anomaly in the plate management data within Radan. Every morning the previous day’s nests are sent to the office and the Radan system is updated so that it shows holes in the sheet and not parts waiting to be cut. Says Richard Orviss: “We keep all the past drawings because our customers come back and say ‘do you remember that job you did for us?’  We can usually find it.”

One of the largest privately-owned stockholders in East Anglia, Mill Stainless is looking to expand further with even more profiling and finishing machines. Richard Orviss concludes: “We are supplying parts that are low volume and high variety, and many are just one offs. Our four Radan seats let us manage our business efficiently and when we expand we know Radan will expand with us.”

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