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An air conditioning and engine cooling systems and components manufacturer said that operational reliability is one of the principal reasons why the company has favoured one make of EDM

Denso Manufacturing UK is using five Sodick EDM machines in its toolroom to produce and modify an extensive range of injection mould tools and stamping tools. Located in Telford, Shropshire, the company is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Denso Corporation. Denso employs 1400 associates at its 60,000m2 facility in Telford, where it manufacturers air conditioning and engine cooling systems and components for automotive OEM and aftermarket customers.

* High specification EDM machines - many of the components produced at Telford are small injection moulded plastics parts that come off injection mould tools, or stamped thin sheet metal parts.

For this reason the Telford facility houses a significant toolroom furnished with high specification machine tools.

Among these are five Sodick EDMs supplied by UK distributor Sodi-Tech EDM.

The earliest model, an A85, arrived in 1990 and hardly looks out of place alongside the latest arrival, a Sodick AQ537L linear motor wire EDM, said SodiTech.

'We have updated the software on the A85, but other than that it's the same machine that arrived 15 years ago,' said Graham Firmstone, CADCAM engineer at Denso Manufacturing UK.

'Its reliability is one of the principal reasons we have remained with Sodi-Tech for such an extensive period'.

Firmstone continued: 'The production department works to a Just-in-Time (JIT) system, so if a tool goes down we could potentially be talking about stopping a production line at one of our automotive customers.

Over the years we have come to rely on our Sodick EDMs to a very great extent and the service engineers at Sodi-Tech always provide an excellent response'.

Many tooling parts manufactured at Denso Manufacturing UK are one-offs but some components are repeated.

To this end, batch sizes up to 50-off are known to pass through the facility's EDM section.

One factor that is always consistent, however, is the requirement for high quality, precision parts.

Micron-level tolerances are maintained using the Sodick EDMs on materials that include D2 and P20 tool steels, as well as carbide.

'No one can question the precision or repeatability of these machines,' said Firmstone.

'They work hard - three rotational shifts Monday-Friday with optional overtime at the weekends - but they don't miss a beat.

Scrap is almost unheard of'.

* Small hole EDM driller - helping the Sodick AQ537L hit its output targets is a Sodick K1C small hole EDM.

Firmstone said that this EDM driller not only produces pre-start holes for the wire EDM, it is also used in the manufacture of mould tool components that require oil or air cooling holes.

As well as mould tools for plastics air conditioning unit parts, the toolroom also handles the company's requirement for stamping tools.

These tools produce parts for automotive assemblies such as radiators, condensers and heater cores.

Some of the stamping tools are complex, progressive and fairly intricate, and again are all produced using Sodick EDM technology.

'Our investment in the machines supplied by Sodi-Tech has played an enormous part in helping the company achieve its objective of delivering high quality, cost-efficient components, on-time,' concluded Firmstone.

* About Denso Corp - Denso Corporation is a leading global supplier of advanced automotive technology, systems and components, and is headquartered in Kariya, Aichi prefecture, Japan.