Within a couple of hours of Citizen Machinery UK opening its doors for the Technology Days Open House, three directors of precision sub-contractor Adams Engineering (Ilkeston) ordered a Citizen Cincom L32 –VIII sliding head turn-mill centre to increase its installed base of Citizen Machinery UK supplied machines to five.
Said Managing Director Robert Roberts: “We have to increase capacity because one of our leading customers with a turnover in excess of £140 million has acquired another business. As we have a long term reliable supplier history, we are online to significantly increase part production.”
The first day of the Open House was branded an outstanding success by Deputy Managing Director Darren Wilkins as his team chalked up orders from the 75 customers attending worth well over £700,000. This also included machine orders from visiting customers from Scotland and Ireland. Indeed, over the three days with more than 300 people attending, 18 orders were placed worth in excess of £3.4 million with a major focus by customers buying seven machines featuring Citizen’s patented Low Frequency Vibration technology (LFV)
Adams Engineering employs seven people at its Ilkeston facility supplying UK customers as far away as Scotland. These include medical, mining, automotive, rail and musical instrument as well as air conditioning and heating system sectors.
Said Director Tracy Manners: “10 years ago we installed our first Citizen an A20-VI and have never looked back. We now have two A20-VIIs bought in 2012 and a fixed head Miyano BNA-42S in 2014 which gave us increased bar size capability.”
Added Director Scott Burrows: “We have grown on the back of Citizen installations giving us reliability, consistency of production, and support and service when we need it. We have the flexibility to produce a wide range of parts in batches between 200 and 20,000 parts and in most materials including mild steel, stainless, brass, copper, aluminium bronze and plastics which enables us to support a good customer base.”
Mr Roberts has spent 53 years in the sub-contract business originally working with his father on manual, cam-driven and plugboard lathes. On the back of an increased order book, he has also recently installed the first vertical machining centre.
