ES Precision (ES; Kingston Bagpuize, Oxfordshire, UK), like other businesses, experienced a fall in business activity in 2020-2021. This company uses a range of galvo-deflected lasers to provide a laser processing service to medical device, automotive, electronics, and other engineering companies. Many of these key sectors were hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, as there were fewer scheduled operations in the National Health Services and car plants temporarily closed assembly lines.
ES had been contemplating an expansion of its current laser marking-dominated service to include subcontract erosion cutting, but hesitated to do so owing to economic uncertainties and reduced capital available as a consequence of business being hit by the pandemic.
Erosion cutting is a promising application for medium-power, galvo-driven fiber laser marking systems that meet a demand for precise cutting of thin materials that most commercial flat-bed laser cutters cannot handle. These large CO2- or fiber-based machines with high pressure gas nozzles are not well suited to producing fine features and small profiles in metal sheets that are on the order of 1 mm thickness.
The idea is to present a service for profiling, drilling, and perforating thin-gauge materials (mainly any type of metal, up to about 2 mm thick—see photo) to high-technology manufacturing in Oxfordshire and across the UK and Ireland. Aside from their core sectors mentioned above, ES sees interest from motorsport, solar energy, sensor/lab-on-a-chip manufacturers, fuel cell development, instrumentation, and aerospace.
Integral to the company’s plans to laser-cut structures with great accuracy is a need to precisely measure what has been achieved. This requires investment in an optical measurement system to provide QA and reports for its customers in addition the laser cutting workstation.
ES presented its business plans and the impact on the Oxfordshire economy in its grant application and the OxLEP committee that saw the benefits of funding the project via the government’s Getting Building Fund, which targets capital investment projects that can take part in a much-needed renewal phase for the economy.
ES Precision will take delivery of the erosion cutter and measurement system in fall 2021 and then launch the service towards the end of 2021.