Whatever you want!

An independent, privately-owned business with a strong family-run philosophy, Wilsons supply high performance semi-finished metals and alloys to meet the demanding requirements of the global manufacturing supply chain.

A founding member of Aero Metals Alliance (AMA), an alliance of six world-class metal suppliers united to create a single offering that brings together product ranges, processing capabilities and services, Wilsons offer a formidable stock of high integrity aerospace alloys comprising bar, billet, plate, sheet and tube either raw or semi-finished and tailored to your needs.

The aerospace industry is possibly the most exacting of all sectors, so it’s vital that materials stockists and distributors constantly evolve and keep pace with its demands. Whilst price, quality and delivery are given, it’s often the strength and stability of long-term relationships with people you’ve grown accustomed to that wins repeat business.

“We provide tailor-made delivery solutions for all our customers,” begins Wilsons’ director and general manager, James Digby. “Yes, price, delivery and quality are a given in this industry - and the competition is extreme, so we have to do things slightly different and offer much more. Wilsons has always tried to ensure that it gives the customer whatever they want.

“We offer simultaneously direct line feed, Kanban, run of the mill orders, plus any combination of these. We’ve recently won a new contract from an aerospace manufacturing customer to provide direct line feed individual items straight into their CNC machining cell. We always strive to go above and beyond our customers’ expectations.”

Near net shaping

Digby adds that the vast majority of the bar and billet products that Wilsons supply is semi-finished in some way, either cut to length, deburred and chamfered, part marked, etched etc. And as far as any CNC milling operation requirements are concerned, the company has recently invested £1 million in the purchase of a new Handtmann HBZ CompactCell 5-axis CNC machining centre, a high speed solution that removes aluminium at extremely rapid rates. The HBZ offers flexible, high-speed machining of aluminium parts to ‘near net shape’, saving processing time and scrap.

“We provide higher levels of service as opposed to simply delivering raw material with some basic machining operations. We find some of our customers waste valuable cycle time by removing raw material using expensive CNC machining centres. 90% of the material sold into the aerospace sector is turned into swarf. We can machine 80% of the part for the raw billet, let the customer focus on doing the high accuracy, finish-machining operations and increase their workshop throughput without any considerable capital investment required.

“We’ve bought the HBZ because there are very few customers and stockists that can offer this type of service at the speed, precision and cost that we can. The HBZ can run at 30,000rpm whereas most of our customers’ machines will typically run at around 10,000rpm, so we can remove the bulk of the material three times faster and massively increase the amount of material that they can process through their machining centres. Customers can now focus their spindle time on the things that earn them the most money, i.e. final component machining rather than pre-machining. It’s something that distributors like Wilsons are focusing on as being a different offering to their customers as opposed to the standard supply offering. It’s a partnership arrangement that Wilsons is building to further integrate with our customers and become their supplier of choice.”

I ask if there is any concern that less developed countries can push unqualified, or at least ‘unknown origin’ materials into the aerospace metals supply chain?

“Wilsons only buys from approved and highly-reputable Western-based mills. The issue with buying from certain countries and regions is that they don’t possess the aerospace approvals. We source the majority of our raw material from Western European and US suppliers, because they have the requisite aerospace approvals. These regions can demonstrate the quality and delivery performance you need in order to support major OEM build rates. We’ve a huge network of contacts under constant review to ensure we buy at the most advantageous price and pass this benefit onto our customers.

“However, this does add an area of opportunity due to the increasing demands for European-sourced aerospace alloys from regions like India and China. Wilsons supplies a considerable amount of material to the Indian subcontinent and China and our export growth is probably 100% on last year, which is great news for the UK economy.”

The material of choice

I’m also interested to know whether Wilsons is concerned by the increasing prevalence of carbon fibre composites (CFRP) in the aerospace industry and whether it poses a threat to traditional metals-based supply chains. Perhaps a metallic backlash is brewing in order to compete with CFRP’s desirable lightweight properties?

“The metallic fightback is certainly the reason why we’re seeing increasing developments in Aluminium-Lithium over and above CFRP. The amount of aluminium employed in the construction of latest civil aircraft means that its demand growth is higher than ever. Even though CFRP-built aircraft appear to be taking a larger share of the market, the amount of aluminium flying today means there is going to be a continuing strong demand, assuming OEM build rate predictions are accurate.

“So the industry doesn’t see the demand for aerospace aluminium declining any time soon. Magnesium alloy and Al-Li use is increasing, but they represent a relatively small part of the market at present. This may well change, plus we’re yet to see the impact that additive manufacturing may have on traditional manufacturing techniques.”

Digby believes the manufacturing industry will definitely see an increase in aircraft build rates in 2017, and its supply chain is starting to see early signs of the predicted ramp-up rate starting to kick in this year too.

“Our predicted turnover will be up 10% on last year, which in a so-called ‘flat industry’ we’re very happy with,” he concludes. “Next year will really take off and we’re already starting to see some of this activity permeate into the manufacturing supply chain. If the OEMs want to achieve these high rates by next year, the supply chain really needs to be 6-8 months ahead of the curve.”

www.wilsonsmetals.com