Operational efficiency increases at Bunts Tools with addition of Haas Turnmill centres

By Niraj M Wanikar, Chief Editor, CNCTimes.com, 2015-11-05 13:47:49

Situated at a distance of 1.5 km from Nasik-Mumbai highway is one of the best and cleanest shop floors in Nasik that delivers precision machined components. BUNTS Tools Pvt Ltd caters to Indian and multinational OEMs of switchgears, ATM machines, construction equipment, wire rope applications, hydraulic valves and human machine interface applications.

Started by Mr Prabhakar Shetty in the year 1984, when he shifted to Nasik from Mumbai, the primary activity of BUNTS Tools Company was to manufacture single point carbide tipped tool. It gradually started manufacturing precision machined components on conventional machines as per customer requirement and achieved a consistent CAGR of 20% since last five years.

High Thinking, Best Practices

BUNTS Tools has invested in around 19 turning centres, two turnmills with Y axis, 5 VMCs, CMM, height gauge, optical profile projector, surface roundness, software for CAD/CAM besides the hardware. It is an ISO 9001-2008 certified company by Bureau Veritas India and has implemented QMS across the organisation in true essence. Since the company has social responsibility towards environment with the zeal to implement efficient and safe manufacturing practices, the management decided to get itself ISO 14001-2004 and BS OSHAS 18001-2007 certified by BVQI in the year 2012.

Domestic business constitutes 53 percent and overseas business constitutes 47 percent of the annual sales. “Our vision is to increase domestic business to 60 percent and we are taking positive steps in that direction. I think we Indians are very competent and capable of matching global standards. This we can achieve through sincerity where communication should be prompt, clear and honest,” the Director of the company, Mr Santosh Shetty said.

In Line With Advancements

“My father had a company in Mumbai and was a shop floor person, so he understood quality as the components manufactured at our job shop met the highest accuracy level at that time. He never compromised on quality and imbibed the same thing amongst us. We had conventional lathes, milling machine, two drilling machines and shaping machine. It was in the year 1993, when I joined my father, then we introduced automation in the plant by purchasing the first desktop computer,” Mr Shetty said.

“The huge turnaround for our company came in year 2002, when one of our customers, Schneider Electric, asked us to machine components for them. The only hitch was that they wanted a certain level of quality which was not possible to achieve on conventional lathes. So, one of their senior personnel convinced and motivated us to invest into CNC machines as the need of time,” Mr Shetty said.

“We machined push buttons for Schneider Electric and lived up to their expectations. After that there was no looking back for us and we went on to purchase two more CNC machines at one time in 2004 and also invested into inspection equipment’s to confirm the repeatability of the end product. We started exporting components to France in year 2004 and have been presently supplying several countries around the globe.

“Today, our market share is 50-50 percent in exports and domestic, but we have started laying stress on increasing our domestic share and want to make it 60-40. I think entrepreneurs should keep on adding new customers instead of staying focused on only one customer. When we have the capabilities we should try to generate business from multiple sector’s which would not affect an enterprise if a sector is doing badly. As a policy, we at BUNTS have decided to not to increase any customer share by more than 20 percent of our annual business.” he said.

Strategy Two-In-One

Asked about the reason behind company finalizing Haas machines, Mr Shetty said they were looking for a turn mill centre and was also working on setting up a robotic cell. “Haas and its MD know SME sector and offer solutions as per requirement. When I saw Haas turn mill centre, I liked it at first go. I told my colleagues that by going in for a turn mill centre, we may have to pay more initially, but our productivity will increase in the long run. Haas made it a reality. Eventually, we purchased one more and also bought a milling machine with the probe facility. This made our job easy,” Mr Shetty said and added that one should stretch his resources and invest in technology as it proves beneficial in the long run.

To Be Precise

BUNTS Tools procured its first machine ST10Y which is a turn mill centre with Y axis from Haas. The machine gave excellent results both in term of accuracies as well as productivity. We could shift all components with small milling operation on ST10Y thus making it cost effective due to reduced cycle times. It also created capacity on existing VMC machines. Mr Shetty said, “This technology developed by Haas gave excellent results. Due its spindle construction & rigidity we achieved an increase in productivity by 15 to 20%, better finishing and 10% reduction in tool cost in some cases. After assessing the ROI we were encouraged to place a PO for an additional ST10Y within 6 months.”

The biggest advantage of Haas, according to Mr Shetty, is it’s after sales service which is of utmost importance to a small entrepreneur. He says “Apart from maintenance visits their application engineer frequently visit to update our operators and give inputs on how to reduce cycle time & explain features of Haas controller. They also go beyond their duty as whenever we give them any part and ask them to machine it to assess cycle time, they do it. They support even on special tooling’s to try out a component depending on the availability with them. To add to all the above they now have a HAAS company outlet in Nasik,” Mr Shetty said and concluded that he will definitely be recommending Haas machines to other entrepreneurs as a great investment in the long run.

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