June saw the delivery and installation of a new CNC Thermal Cutting system supplied by Esprit Automation based in Nottingham.
The state of the art machine incorporates the latest developments in oxy-fuel cutting and will enable the staff at Port Engineering to accurately cut profiles from a comprehensive library of pre-drawn shapes or their own computer designed creations, in varying thicknesses of steel plate up to 300mm.
Steven Arnold, Managing Director comments, “This machine offers us major benefits in terms of increased productivity, reduced costs and improved quality. Much of our profiling work was either contracted out which proved expensive and or we often cut out shapes by hand which was time consuming and didn’t always provide the required accuracy.”
Several of Port Engineering’s staff have attended training courses both in Nottingham and on site at their workshop at Milford Docks in order to familarise themselves with the complexities and capabilities of the new machine and have already had the opportunity to put that training to good use.
The purchase of the profiler was made possible with grant assistance from Pembrokeshire County Council and also from the Welsh Assembly Government. Says Adrian Owens, Port Engineering’s Business Development Manager, “We are indebted to Richard Hill of Pembrokeshire County Council, Stuart Walder and Richard Smith of PBI and Colin Kaijaks of the Welsh Assembly Government, all of who provided invaluable assistance in terms of helping us with the grant applications. As a relatively new company it is gratifying to know that there is a comprehensive support network for new and existing businesses. The purchase of this machine will not only improve efficiency, but it will also enable us to diversify into other markets.”