UK assessing cost of cancelling Eurofighter deal

LONDON, May 11 (Reuters) - British defence and finance ministry officials held talks on Monday to assess the financial implications if Britain cancelled part of its Eurofighter defence contract, defence sources said.

With the national budget under severe strain due to the economic crisis, the Treasury is reviewing spending on major contracts and has to give the go-ahead on all deals costing more than 400 million pounds ($586 million).

Under a long-standing agreement with Spain, Italy and Germany -- its partners in Eurofighter -- Britain is obliged to buy 88 of the aircraft as part of a third production tranche.

That number has already been reduced to an initial 40 after a compromise negotiated by Germany, with the remainder offset for a later production run, dubbed tranche 3b.

Yet even the cost of the 40 jets -- of which 24 have already been set aside for Saudia Arabia -- is proving a tough commitment for Britain. The 16 it would actually take delivery of will cost around $1.6 billion, defence industry sources say.

The Treasury is stalling on that sum, the sources say, but any cancellation of the contract would not necessarily mean a saving -- since getting out would carry its own penalties and legal fees that could more than offset the $1.6 billion.

Discussions over the contract are complicated by the fact that senior Ministry of Defence officials are divided over the necessity of Eurofighter, with some seeing it as essential to Britain's future defence role and others as surplus to need.

"The Treasury and MoD are going to have to hammer out the details," a defence ministry source said of the talks, which he said began on Monday and may continue through the week.

WHAT DEFENCE ROLE?

Britain is under particular pressure from Germany to show its commitment to Eurofighter, which is being built by Britain's BAE Systems, Italy's Finmeccanica and EADS of Germany and Spain.

Not only is Eurofighter an important symbol of pan-European cooperation, but it involves the employment of up to 100,000 people worldwide, according to its supporters. BAE has said the contract is worth two billion pounds ($3 bln) to it alone.

With Germany holding elections in September, Berlin wants Britain to show its commitment to the third tranche -- and pay up. Britain needs Germany to be committed to NATO operations in Afghanistan, where more troops are required.

The negotiations over Eurofighter cut to the quick of what combat role Britain sees itself playing as a global power -- and whether it can really afford to play that role.

Britain has a range of defence contract obligations over the next six years: the A400M transport aircraft, the building of Type-45 destroyers, tactical submarines, two aircraft carriers and the joint-strike fighter as well as Eurofighter.

While major cuts to some contracts are possible, any cuts could carry financial penalties, political costs in terms of votes, and security costs if defence were compromised.

Rather than a headline-grabbing cancellation of a major contract, Keith Hartley, the director of the centre for defence economics at the University of York, expects "trimming".

"There might be the possibility of a small reduction in numbers (of Eurofighters) without too much of a penalty," he said. "But I think we'll fiddle around with the margins, make small reductions if we can, rather than cancelling." (Editing by Kate Kelland and Sharon Lindores)

Membrane Keypads and Graphic Overlays

Glasgow-based international manufacturing services company Mekall is to expand and diversify its graphics division.

From its UK graphics factory, Mekall has designed and manufactured Custom Membrane Keypads, Graphic Overlays and Fascias for clients in the instrumentation, medical, biomedical, diagnostics, aerospace, defence, catering and agricultural sectors for nearly 25 years.

Now key supplier to a number of blue-chip companies throughout Europe and Asia the company is looking to strengthen its offering in the European marketplace in particular; by launching a number of new services over the coming months.

Launching in April, Mekall is to offer a comprehensive range of standard sized membrane keypads and overlays for a broad range of applications. The move sees Mekall diversify from its 25 year history; producing custom solutions to also offer a unique range of “off-the-shelf products”, Tom Kennett, Account Manager for Mekall said: “In recent times, we have seen increasing demand for standard layouts and sizes of keypads and overlays - with designers and engineers particularly keen to keep their tooling and development costs & timescales as low as possible”.

He added, “Sadly for most product designs, the design and specification of the interface whether it be a keypad or touch screen, comes towards the latter stages of the design phase constraining the Keypad or Overlay to be built around the rest of the product. With growing emphasis on designers maximising the interface between man and machinery and keeping the interface solution as cost-effective and adaptable as possible, more designers are now looking at the interface element of their product earlier in the design phase. Given Mekall can now offer a range of standard sized Membrane Keypads and Overlays to the marketplace we feel we can help companies to benefit from standard products meaning reduced setup costs, tooling investment, lead-time and unit costs as well as reducing their inventory – whilst still allowing customers to add their own logo, references where required”

The new service will be available via www.standardkeypads.co.uk and www.standardoverlays.co.uk and will expand in coming months to offer a unique interactive service allowing designers and engineers to get budget estimation of their designs online.

Prototyping

Prototyping Made Easy

In today’s economic climate, it is becoming increasingly important for businesses to be able to get their latest inventions and editions to market at a greater speed; to get market feedback initially and all going well to gain interest at a level which generates sales in the future.

With many UK subcontractors collapsing over the last decade; faced with greater offshore competition and the impact of globalisation, it has become increasingly difficult to find quality sources for prototyping in the UK & Ireland.
Those companies that are lucky enough to still have quality sources will struggle to find a contractor that can handle their whole mix of prototyping work, at the costs that they need and within the timeframe required.
Adding to that, there are very few prototyping houses left in the UK that are able to be manufacturing partners when the product reaches market and the volumes start to expand.
The Mekall Prototyping centre was setup in 2008 to allow companies in Europe to benefit from a one-stop-shop facility for prototyping (whether it be CNC Milling, Finishing, Screen Printing etc) whilst offering a partner that could also be there for them when the product reaches higher volumes..
The prototyping centre also benefits from a team of Industrial Product Designers; who aid the customer-supplier development relationship by offering services like DFMA (Design for Manufacture & Assembly), Cost Reduction Principles, Product Visulisation Animations & Fly- Bys.
Submit your enquiry on the form below or call us on 0141 568 8185, or email us on sales@mekall.com

• Our rapid prototyping Services:
• CNC Milling (Metals & Plastics)
• CNC Turning (Metals & Plastics)
• Sheet Metal Fabrication (Aluminium & Stainless Steel)
• Overlays & Membrane Keypads
• Finishing of (Metals & Plastics)
• Screen Printing
• ABS Plastic Moulding
• Rendering & Animation Services
• Product Design

Defence & telecommunications supplier ‘would not operate a machine without probes’

Mekall, a Scottish manufacturing services group uses HAAS machine tools, each one fitted with Renishaw touch probes, to service clients in the defence, aerospace, medical and telecommunications markets.

Tom Forsyth, managing director of Mekall’s Machining Division (previously named Fortec), cannot understand why anyone would buy a CNC machine tool without Renishaw probes. He has 12 HAAS machines, all fitted with spindle mounted probes for part setting, and feels well equipped to expand Mekall’s subcontract work.

When touch probes were first introduced total machining cycle times were reduced, with setting times cut dramatically and the whole process made highly repeatable. Simultaneously process development times were significantly reduced. As Tom Forsyth comments, “We’ve brought in time-served skilled engineers who’ve never seen probing before and left them goggle-eyed!”

Now a key supplier to a growing number of clients in the defence, aerospace, medical and telecommunications markets, Mekall is also the manufacturing partner and supplier to sister company Teknek, a world leader in contact sheet cleaning and web cleaning machinery, with over 15,000 installations worldwide, including many of the world’s leading manufacturing facilities. Teknek systems improve yields substantially in manufacturing applications such as surface-mount technology (SMT), printed circuit board (PCB), automotive glass, solar energy and converting/printing. A recent installation is at one of Sony’s European plants where it manufactures surface-mount technology (SMT) boards for various Sony flat screen televisions.

The main benefit is the certainty

Mekall use Renishaw touch probes on its HAAS machines to control the process. As Mr Forsyth says, “It gives us consistency and takes out the chance of human error. Scrap reduction is not even an issue we have to consider.” When parts are loaded for machining the probe is used to measure the position of datum features in a matter of seconds. Machining can start immediately with no manual setting.

Mekall know how important the repeatability of the probing process can be. Before fitting the first touch probe systems to machine tools, they had big problems on a very accurate job for Thales. The position of machined features could vary by up to 0.1mm over the course of a shift, which was all down to operator error.

Time savings and automation of manual tasks

“Probes are critical when machining castings”, says Mr Forsyth. “We’ve done jobs that if set manually would have added a day’s work. The casting for a BAe Systems Challenger tank needed us to use a skewing function to rotate the whole coordinate system, using the positioning data gathered with the probe. The thin walls on the casting meant that you had to pick up on the feature itself, and with 50 datum features to check it would have been a huge manual task.”

Intelligent decision making

The data the touch probe provides can also be used to provide feedback so that the machine makes ‘intelligent decisions’. Mekall use routines that check for mis-load by finding the position of certain features. The program will not run if it detects a surface in the wrong place or cannot find a feature.

Rapid process development

Mr Forsyth continues, “Knowing you have the probe shortens the development time considerably, removing the need to design and develop fixtures, since you don’t need to position the part accurately. Simple clamping is used and an approximate location is all that is needed for the probe to find and set the part. We’ve been able to standardise the work-holding system across all the machines.

He adds, “The probe moves are very quick and easy to program. We add single lines of NC macro commands into the programs produced by our CAM system.” Mekall use a Solidworks CAD/CAM system, importing drawings and CAD models in the various formats their customers supply ready to plan the machining routines, then quickly adding the probe moves afterwards.

HAAS machines – “capable and easy to use”

Mekall use HAAS machine tools exclusively, with 10 VMCs and 2 turning centres. There are several reasons for this, firstly that Tom Forsyth wanted to standardise on the HAAS control, which he finds very capable and easy to use. Another critical requirement was maintenance, which Mekall does in-house.

Explains Mr Forsyth, “Support can all be done over the phone. Our engineers fit replacement parts, make adjustments and downtime is kept to an absolute minimum. In 15 years we’ve not had a single issue.”

Mekall – a ‘one-stop-shop’ company with multiple processes

With manufacturing facilities throughout the UK, Mekall is a diverse company, capable of prototyping and design, right through to volume manufacture. It can manufacture a broad range of components with a particular focus on sheet metal fabrication, membrane keypad manufacture and CNC milling, as well as a specialist finishing division for metals and plastics.

With years of relevant experience, Mekall now aims to double or triple the company turnover, particularly with the machining of aerospace parts. Batch sizes can vary from one-offs to 200 or more, in a variety of materials. The company has the capability for jobs from Ø1.5 mm up to Ø250 mm and prismatic parts up to 1.25 m long, with 5 machines capable of doing the larger jobs.

With rapid process development, stable and predictable processes and automated machines, Mekall is well placed to compete for high accuracy work.

MEKALL WINS MOD CONTRACT

Glasgow-based international manufacturing services company Mekall has won the first part of a large defence contract to supply metal components for a major aerospace project.

The company has seen its manufacturing services business go from strength to strength in the past year winning business in the Medical, Defence and Aerospace markets throughout the UK and mainland Europe.

With a growing portfolio of manufacturing contracts the company is very optimistic about future growth and is expecting its contract portfolio to expand to £10 Million GBP over the next 3 years.

With particular focus in CNC Milling, Sheet metal & Membrane Keypad manufacturing, Mekall has over 30 years experience of manufacturing and has one of the most comprehensive ranges of manufacturing services in the UK including:

• Design and prototyping
• Assembly
• CNC Milling/Turning
• Sheet metal fabrication
• Membrane keypads
• Graphic overlays
• Laser marking
• Anodising
• Powder coating
• Wet spraying

“We offer precision engineering services of the highest standards to customers in the UK and internationally,” said Tom Kennett, Account Manager for Mekall. “I believe we are bucking the manufacturing trend because we offer so many services under one roof. Customers know they can come to us and we will manage their project from beginning to end. Being part of the TH Group means we can call upon the resources of our sister companies when needed. For example, MESO Design, A TH group member, is at the forefront of product design in the UK and we have used their skills in helping a number of customers develop products at the prototype stage and in helping to design their products to be suitable for DFMA – Design for Manufacture and Assembly.”

He added: “We continue to make substantial investments in technology and personnel throughout all areas of the business; aiding our capability and capacity and we are actively forming partnerships with like-minded companies both nationally and offshore; ensuring we are at the forefront of modern subcontract manufacturing.”

For further information please visit www.mekall.com or call 0845 643 5374.

MEKALL invest in Natgraph drying technology

Glasgow based MEKALL, a global manufacturing & technology group has invested in the latest drying technology from leading print equipment Manufacturer Natgraph Ltd of Nottingham.

The new Natgraph Air Force/IR/UV Combination Dryer has been installed at its manufacturing Headquarters in Renfrewshire Scotland; now home to a number of THG Companies. The combination dryer is one of several recent investments made by THG to facilitate the long-term expansion plans of its Manufacturing Services division; Mekall Ltd.

Tom Kennett, Sales Executive for Mekall Ltd said, “Whilst MEKALL offer a comprehensive range of manufacturing, finishing & assembly services to clients throughout Europe we have growing and continued demand for our Membrane Keypad & Graphic Overlay Manufacturing service and for that reason we decided to invest further in our Membrane Keypad production facility.”

He added, “Given Natgraph’s reputation in the marketplace for providing excellent solutions to the Printing Industry we decided that they were the right supplier to use in terms of our investment in drying technology”

Natgraph were chosen by MEKALL to provide a conveyorised drying system to cure silver conductive, graphic overlay and dielectric inks at higher production speeds, with a lower rejection rate and better control than the existing systems and, in a smaller footprint. The solution was a Natgraph Air Force/IR/UV Combination Dryer equipped high temperature air and PLC control. This system ensured that once Mekall had completed optimisation tests for each ink system, the dryer will always operate at exactly the same settings, with no deviation.

John McKay, Print Manager of Mekall is delighted with the new drying system, he stated “The consistency of cure, excellent inter-coat adhesion and lack of contamination has already made a difference to our output and efficiency.”