Keymed's new hi-tech plant

benefits from KKS401DRNC -

leading edge circular sawing technology

Keymed, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Olympus Optical Company, specialising in the design, development and manufacture of endoscopy and ultrasound equipment, for both the medical and industrial markets, has opened a new 4000 square metre production facility at their Southend headquarters.

It is the result of the company’s decision to bring all manufacturing in-house for the first time. Taking its place in this state-of-the-art facility is a new Kaltenbach KKS401 DRNC sawing cell, equipped with automated feed stillages.

"It was essential that we made the right choices when it came to purchasing new equipment," comments David Smith, Sheet Metal and Fabrication Manager. "We manufacture a wide and varied product range, which we produce in small batches on demand, as a JIT operation. The CNC facility on the Kaltenbach saw is therefore extremely important to us, as we can use the stored historical data to quickly set-up the saw for each batch".

The KKS401 DRNC at Keymed, is used to cut mainly mild steel, stainless steel and aluminium sections, as well as tube. Coping easily with these materials, cutting tolerances are well within required specifications of ±0.2mm. A planned future addition to achieve the ultimate in saw management, is a network card, which will enable the saw to be DNC linked, allowing all historical production data to be accessed and downloaded. This feature will allow production planning and cost estimating to be easily and routinely achieved by the sales office.

As a totally new facility, Keymed needed to train new staff. As all the new operators are required to be multi-skilled, ease of use was an extremely important factor when it came to choosing a new saw.

One of the new saw operators, Martyn Smith commented, "I'm a welder by trade and found the prospect of working with computerised controls and keyboards, a bit daunting at first. This saw is very straight forward to operate and after the first day's training, I became confident and completely happy with its method of operation".

"We are producing precision optical systems and as you would expect, cutting tolerances are very important to us", says David Smith. "All in all, Kaltenbach has provided us with a top quality machine and excellent value for money - the KKS401 is one of the best priced machines on the market".