That huge library of material there is a lot more than a pile (and, for what it’s worth, it’s about a third of our stockholding). What you see there is the physical manifestation of our ability to respond incredibly quickly to our clients’ needs. Of course, not every job is an emergency, and our customers know that when they need something turned around in the blink of an eye, all they have to do is ask us.
One day recently, one of our local engineering customers brought us a cardboard template that he’d hacked away at with a knife and scrawled a few details on. The job was a breakdown - mission critical equipment stranded and costing its owner dearly.
In the first 15 minutes after the engineer came through the door, we had traced and digitised his template, then drawn over the top of it with 3D CAD to rectify the critical dimensions and geometric constraints. We’d also alerted our material handlers and machine operator that a P1 job had landed for 16mm Grade 300 steel and to get the waterjet ready.
Within the next 15 minutes, we’d reviewed our CAD, generated the exact same DXF file that could be used with our webshop, and passed the part into our nesting and post-processing software. That software looked at the digital records of all of our 16mm G300 steel, selected the best-suited piece, nested the part into the plate, and generated the G-code that our abrasive waterjet uses to turn dreams into real parts.
Within the next 10 minutes, the waterjet was cleared of its prior parts, the chosen 16mm plate was safely lowered onto the cutting table, the file was loaded, and our pre-flight checklist was complete.
Over the next 20 minutes, the waterjet made the part, we had let the customer know when it would be ready, and as the machine shut off, he walked through the door. We spent a minute reviewing the critical dimensions and checking the overall part against the cardboard template one last time, and sent one very happy customer away.\
If you’re keeping track, that’s 60 scant minutes from a cardboard template coming through the door to a bespoke chunk of 16mm steel heading back out the door.
Our team takes great pride in being able to pull off miracles like that, and our customers know that when they need to pull the Big Red Panic Lever, we’ve got them covered, no fuss and no questions asked.
