Motorsport manufacturer drives forward with Colchester
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As a world-leading motorsport and advanced technology business, Prodrive invests in the very latest technology – and this now includes an exciting collaboration with machine tools from Colchester Machine Tool Solutions.
The Prodrive business and culture is well recognised in the motorsport industry, but now, it works with businesses in the automotive, aerospace, marine and other sectors to create innovative engineering solutions. Commenting upon the new relationship, Keith Clowe from Colchester says: “We have a great relationship with Prodrive and it started about 12 months ago. We now have four CNC machines in here and we have a further three machines that will be delivered soon. It’s a two-way relationship where we can showcase our machines to people in this fantastic environment.”
“Prodrive are using our machines to make components for a host of their first-class customers, and the parts being produced on the machines at the moment are for Aston Martin racing.”
Continuing on this relationship, Colchester Machine Tools, Ben Warrens says: “People in places like Southampton don’t want to travel all the way to Elland to see a machine tool, so this is a great location from that point of view. Additionally, with a fantastic company like Prodrive, it instils confidence that companies like this are investing in our machine tools and you can see the machines working. We have four CNC machines on the shop floor and two of these are VMC’s. We also have a sub-spindle live tooling turning centre as well as a C-axis lathe as well. This demonstrates that we are more than just a conventional machine tool supplier.”
“It’s always nice to see machines in a stagnant format in a showroom, but to see them in a workshop producing high-end precision parts is far more beneficial. It also gives the potential customer a feel for the quality of the machine tools. This gives visiting engineers an opportunity to talk to the engineers on the shop floor at Prodrive, to discuss the machines and get feedback.”
Speaking with Jordan Slater from Prodrive, he tells MTD that: “I did an apprenticeship at Prodrive mostly on manual machines, until the Colchester CNC machines arrived. These machines are really easy to pick up and use.” Referring to the parts machined in the workshop, Jordan says: “A lot of the parts machined here are aluminium, but some of the newer projects are titanium. We also do some mild steel jobs as well.”
Looking at the FANUC CNC control system on the Colchester VMC, Jordan says: “It’s really easy to use and we use the manual guide, as it does make things a lot more user friendly. Some of the parts we are machining are to within a tolerance of 0.25mm. However, a lot of jobs now are machined to 0.01 and 0.015mm. As well as maintaining tolerances, the machines are very reliable.”
