Water Powered by cnc machines

Water Powered by cnc machines

 Kendal is in the Lake District, Cumbria, in the north west of England. By rights, it should be called the Wet District, but as anyone who has ever been to the exposed reaches of our fair but damp island will understand, honesty isn’t necessarily good for tourism. So, the area has always been known and described by dogged and enterprising locals for the weather’s pretty and marketable side effects, rather than for its towering hills or craggy mountain tops, like its less wet, less famous neighbour, the Peak District.

Long before its natural history drew the huddled holidaying masses, the town’s people got along nicely producing pipe tobacco, snuff, and Mint Cake, an invention from the 1860s that’s still made and sold today. Kendal Mint Cake isn’t cake at all, but dense, glucose-based confectionary that could just about keep you alive if you’re an injured shepherd or a wretched hill-walker traipsing ever decreasing circles in thickening cloud – at least, long enough to enjoy one last smoke of your local tobacco.

North West England in the mid-19th century may not have been the tourist destination it is today, but it became a place of great industrial activity. The coal-powered revolution had begun 100 years previously, 150 miles or so to the south; but in the valleys of what used to be the old Westmorland and Kendal baronies, those who owned the means of production covetously eyed the cascading water as an alternative and cheaper source of potential power to run their machinery and turn their mill wheels.

The firm of Gilbert Gilkes and Gordon Ltd was founded in 1853 to design and manufacture the turbines and infrastructure to capture the energy sliding off the hillsides. The company is still there today, in Kendal town, doing what it always did, and it still occupies the building it moved into 120 years ago, where part of the Lancashire Canal once passed through, bringing packet boats of freight and passengers from the neighbouring county. The tunnels that carried the boats along the canal and under the Gilkes factory were blocked a long time ago, but the brickwork arches remain where the old building abuts the new, and a sepia-toned photograph hanging beside the current production line shows workers shifting supplies into and out of boat hulls.

There are few other reminders that this privately owned company has been here since the 15th year of Queen Victoria’s reign. One half of the factory floor is packed with the latest Haas CNC machine tools, arranged in cells and making pumps for diesel engines; the other is open space where components of hydro-power turbines are assembled before being shipped somewhere in the world, to add to the impressive tally of more than 6500 “installations” in 80 countries.

The Haas CNC machine tools are used to manufacture a range of sophisticated pumps for cooling diesel engines and plants. Gilkes supplies many of the world’s major diesel engine manufacturers, and also produces pumping solutions for lubricating oil, gas, and steam turbines. In fact, says Operations Director Andy Poole, Gilkes produces pumps for virtually any application, and has been trading on a reputation established during the Second World War.

“We developed a pump that went on trawlers,” he says. “When the war finished, the fishermen remembered the name. Then, when they built their own boats, they told the engine suppliers what pumps they wanted, and the demand has just grown from there.”

Many similar pumps are manufactured using rubber impellers (the part that goes inside the pump and does all the work), and rubber wears out. “We’ve always offered metal impellers,” says Andy Poole, “which means our pumps last longer and perform better for longer. This year, we’ll make about 19,000 units, all here, in this facility, on Haas machine tools.” By contrast, turbine parts are not manufactured in Kendal. “We do all the design work,” says Mr. Poole, “but the components are made by sub-contractors and only assembled here. We also have a pump plant in Houston, which was established around 35 years ago to refurbish units for our U.S. customers.

“Both Caterpillar and Cummins run refurbishing programmes, where they take engines back from customers and overhaul them. They usually send the pump back to us for rebuilding. So, we’re working on pumps now for generator-sets and industrial and marine applications that we may get back for reconditioning in around 7 or 8 years’ time. Many of the bronze pumps you see around the factory are for marine applications.”

In Goods Inward (the receiving department, to non-Brits), pallets are stacked high with cast pump bodies in different finishes and colours. The castings are all sourced in the UK, which means any quality issues can be resolved quickly and easily. Assuming the casting is good, it becomes a finished pump in around a week, and is then most likely shipped to one of Gilkes’ customers’ plants in the UK or overseas.

“We don’t run a Kanban system,” says Andy Poole. “We make for stock or to order. We have a warehouse in the United States, because our largest customer, Caterpillar, rarely gives us more than one or two days notice.”

The decision to invest in Haas CNC machine tools had a lot to do with the company’s U.S. operations.

“We researched the market,” says Mr. Poole, “but one of our main considerations when we shortlisted the choices was that we wanted to have the same machines at our U.S. plant in Houston as we use here, in the UK. We wanted a machine tool that was going to be supported both sides of the Atlantic, and that used the same control. Haas has a huge user base in America, plus they have a wide range of different machines for different applications. It also means our engineers in the UK can easily share their experience and best practices with their U.S. counterparts.”

Gilkes’ Haas machine tools are organised in product cells – or on a “group technology” basis, as the company refers to the layout. The eventual aim is to have 6 cells, with Haas machines replacing all of the company’s older machine tools.

One of the lines runs two Haas SL-30 turning centres and an EC-400 horizontal, making small bearing houses and bodies. Another, non-Haas, line runs shafts; Haas machines will eventually replace all of these, older machine tools. “Some of these machines are actually older than me,” says Mr. Poole.

A third line runs SL-40 turning centres and VF-3 vertical mills making larger housings and bodies. The fourth line is actually a dedicated, high-volume cell that, during my visit, was being installed and tested: It’s a Haas DS-30SSY high-speed, dual-spindle turning centre with Y-axis and live tooling. There’s a Haas bar feed, an ABB robot for unloading parts, and a Renishaw Equator bench-top gauge for in-process testing. When the cell is fully commissioned, it will work two shifts a day making one collar and one spacer for every pump, plus spares, which will add up to around 50,000 parts a year. The whole investment totals more than ￡400,000!

“We also have two more Haas lathes coming on later this week,” says Mr. Poole, “which will make up the fifth cell, to machine impellers.”

Standing alongside one another are two Haas TL-2 Toolroom Lathes, making bronze parts for marine pumps, and alone in

the middle of the workshop is a TM-1P Toolroom Mill, dedicated to making impellers.

Gilkes is a very busy British manufacturer developing and making perdurable industrial products for global customers and applications. The company is still managed by members of the founding family, but unlike some firms that find it difficult to let go of the past, this one is planning and investing for future glories, and has recently received a government grant for a purpose-built factory on the outskirts of town, where it will have room for its biggest-ever expansion.

In this day and age of super-profit-making, self-congratulating corporations, the example this self-assured firm sets begs the question: How many will be around 160 years from now, doing more-or-less what they were doing when they were founded, but doing it better with every passing year? As long as the Lake District is wet, I predict that there will always be a Gilbert Gilkes and Gordon Ltd.