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Boneham Continues Investment in UK Manufacturing
Boneham and Turner Ltd has completed a run of investment in its UK manufacturing facility in Nottinghamshire. Earlier in the year The Boneham Group increased machining capacity with investments in milling, grinding and inspection. The final wave of investment for 2017 has seen the arrival of two Delapena EAS SpeedHones and a Citizen L12 LFV sliding head lathe.
The Delapena EAS Hones provide greater flexibility in small and high batch work, with faster setup times and simplistic electronic controls. Boneham drill bushes have always been the most accurate available, with concentration on tolerances and concentricity paramount. The new Delapena hones provide the accuracy required to maintain this ethos.
The Citizen L12 LFV has revolutionised sliding head machining, with its Low Frequency Vibration cutting. The LFV process produces small chips rather than trailing swarf, which increases the reliability of unmanned production on Boneham and Turners smaller dowel pins and drill bushes, as well as new products currently under research and development.
Joint Managing Director Peter Boneham explained the motive behind the ongoing investment strategy: “Quite frequently you hear negative news around UK productivity in comparison to the rest of Europe and wider markets. A notable concern is the lack of investment by businesses. Quite often this is down to uncertainty, which has been the case since the recession in 2008. It is down to UK manufacturing businesses to invest in productivity in the build up to exiting the European Union, taking responsibility for driving their sectors forward. We don’t just see this as capacity investment, but also in people. We have added a number of new faces in production and customer facing roles, as well as upskilling members of the team to become proficient in a multitude of disciplines.”
Boneham and Turner Ltd is 100 years old in 2018 and although the company has changed significantly decade by decade, the philosophy has always been to invest in the most efficient machinery for the company’s product portfolio. Charles Boneham, also Joint Managing Director, highlights the need for enhancing efficiency to bring lead times down: “Investments have to impact the customer. We will do this by maintaining costs and improving production efficiency. The Boneham Group have always offered a market leading product, as well as a competitive pricing structure. Whilst those elements remain strong, it is also important to our customers that we have a reliable and responsive infrastructure for rapid deliveries”. Peter went on to say “It is our mission to be completely customer-centric, that viewpoint should ensure that the decisions and investments we make, quickly impact our customers”.
As The Boneham Group enters 2018 it is clear there is an air of confidence in the organisations ability to offer key customers in the UK and the US improved lead times. A confidence epitomised by Peter as he finished by saying “in order for the UK economy to drive forward, we must ensure that there is a supply chain in place that answers the requirements of OEM’s, tier 1 and 2 organisations in gaining competitive edge in a challenging global market, we believe we will achieve that”.