Tyler Bros employees 30 people and provides a premium precision engineering service to clients in industries including oil & gas, automotive and public transport. The company is over 100 years old and is still in the hands of the Tyler family to this day – a fact that has allowed it to oversee an ongoing programme of investment to increase capability and flexibility as part of its continuous improvement programme.
The Tyler Bros machine shop houses 30 CNC machine tools, which perform a number of turning and milling operations. The machines process materials including titanium, copper-nickel alloy, aluminium, cast iron and PPEK thermoplastic. Any issues in quality of the equipment can have a serious knock-on effect for the whole company, so when the coolant began to show signs of surface fungus and separation, the company had to act.
“We found ourselves having to clean out the machines every two to three months,” said Tyler Bros works manager John Ross. “With 30 machines to clean, this task was taking up to two days to complete, which is an unacceptable amount of downtime to absorb.”
The previous coolant supplier blamed the hard water present at the plant, and tried introducing additives to overcome the issue. However, this just led to foaming. “We felt like there was little alternative,” says Ross of the decision to change suppliers.
After a period of consultation, Tyler Bros chose Master Chemical’s TRIM MicroSol 585XT. Its formula delivers extended sump life and better foam control versus previous iterations. The new coolant is more costly than the previous one, but its increased sump life means Tyler Bros now uses just three, not 12, drums per year across its 30 CNC machines, leading to a 47% reduction in annual costs.
The company has been using the new coolant for over two years, and they are delighted with the results. “The product has not separated and we now enjoy a much longer sump life,” says Ross. “Despite being a more expensive product, our annual drum volumes have been cut from 12 to just three, which is a big saving. Most importantly, however, our machines are a lot cleaner with no residue build up.”
