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.