Advatek invests in Additional Vision-Based Measurement System for Increased Capacity and Enhanced Capabilities
A cohesive partnership was formed back in the mid 1990's as a manufacturer of precision high-end CNC machined components based in Bayswater, Victoria, Australia. The manufacturing facility includes a fully owned 600 square metre factory and an array of CNC machine tools, utilising the latest technology in machining and part processing.
Since their inception, Advatek's philosophy has been to build a reputation based on quality, price and delivery which has led to an expanding customer base as witnessed by a steady increase in sales turnover every year. Advatek's success has been mostly due to their commitment to an uncompromising attention to detail and total customer focus, as reinforced in their company quality policy.
With a company goal to only utilise the best and latest CNC machining technology available, Advatek has earned a clientele which comprises companies in areas such as medical, defence, defence electronics, aerospace, wire & wireless communication, oil exploration, both locally and overseas.
Advatek can provide services at short notice, due to their flexible scheduling system with operations 24 hours per day, 7 days a week on the Makino machine centres. The use of unique and locally designed pallet fixturing reduces processing times and assists in the completion of orders much quicker than otherwise would be the case.
Their cutting-edge manufacturing facility produces components from 3D CAD files in parasolid, iges & step formats or from their in-house state-of-the-art design & programming software.
In those cases where no such files exist, experienced CNC programmers are available to convert flat bed drawings to compatible CNC machining files. Utilizing multi-axis horizontal & vertical CNC mills & C axis turning centres they can handle a wide range of products with differing requirements:
- Prototype to production quantities
- Highly complex to simple shapes
- Micro Machining & finishing
- High Speed Machining up to 40,000 rpm with Extreme accuracy, up to 5 micron tolerance
- Machining of super alloys including, inconel ,titanium ,stainless, CI and Polymer materials
- Electronic & mechanical assemblies
Vibratory de-burr processes (pumice or magnetic needle principle) can be included as a post milling operation and custom finishing is performed by one of their highly specialised subcontractors in this field, with coatings including: gold, silver, copper/nickel or anodizing or phosphate finishing.
Besides the main premises in Bayswater where all manufacturing is conducted, a second site in nearby Croydon provides for contingencies and disaster recovery, if and when needed. The site is currently used to warehouse stock of "mission critical" parts for Advatek's major customers.
In early 2011 Advatek purchased their first Micro-Vu vision measurement machine after completing an extensive research and development program with Hi-Tech Metrology to establish the capabilities and repeatability of this type of equipment. A major focus of this program was the inspection of critical medical device components, with one part in particular being a chassis for an implantable medical device machined from a special grade of Titanium alloy.
According to Advatek's managing director, Gary McBean... "We spent quite some time evaluating, finessing, trialling and finally testing the capabilities of the Micro-Vu system to measure our parts." This proved to be right on the limit for the equipment, but still fully repeatable. Hi-Tech was very patient with our particular requirements which were quite tight, based on our customers specifications commented McBean, and in the end we were able to pass all of the tests and tick all of the boxes.
The machine was installed in August 2011 and after some initial fine tuning on site followed by an extensive six-month development project by the Advatek team the system has proven to be a very worthwhile addition to the Advatek business. So successful was the first machine that a second machine from Hi-Tech Metrology was purchased in early 2012 based on the need for additional capacity as well as for new projects for other customers - again with very tight part tolerances. The Micro Vu machines are an excellent production-style measurement system commented Gary McBean at a recent meeting, and ideally suited to our operations where in some cases we have to inspect & report on 100% of the batch of parts that we are manufacturing.
The two Vision systems now allow Advatek to triple their measurement output over the older touch probe systems and allows 64 parts to be loaded into a special-purpose acrylic fixture with the fully automatic Micro Vu machine then measuring all of the loaded parts and producing fully traceable and documented reports to support the rigorous requirements of their medical device customers.
The second Micro Vu system Excel system was installed last month at Advatek's Bayswater plant and now replaces an older CMM within the purpose-built measurement facility and will enable a whole new range of work to be introduced to the business according to McBean, with more measurement capacity and far more overall capability over our older-style measurement systems; leaving us looking to the future to be able to quote and to win more complex and higher added-value work for the Advatek business in the future.