MSC helps Dace Crown cut cycle times by 90% with new tooling

Longbridge-based DaceCrown Ltd has long established itself as one of the leading suppliers of precision components to the bottling and packaging industry. However, after twenty-five years of operation, a new generation of engineering talent has taken over and plans on taking the company to new heights.

“Over the years, the company built a strong reputation among global brewing, beverage and pharmaceutical brands for tackling the toughest packaging and handling challenges,” begins Tom White, Co-owner at DaceCrown Ltd.

Tom, whose background is in applications engineering and technical sales, bought DaceCrown in 2023 with business partner and Operations Director, Jake Harley-Arliss.

In less than a year they took DaceCrown from a fully manual workshop to having three HAAS machine tools: a VF-9 large capacity vertical machining centre, a VF-2 vertical machining centre and a full utilisation of ST10 high-performance turning centre. 

“The previous owners did most of their production work using manual lathes. It was highly skilled but the talent pool for that kind of work is only getting smaller. We wanted to transition to more modern methods of production to futureproof the business while also growing our customer base,” Tom continues.  

“This change in approach very quickly opened the door to winning more jobs for high-value components with complex machining requirements, such as sharper tips, better corner radii and finer screw threads. You simply couldn’t do that work at scale on manual machines.”

However, with business growing, the DaceCrown team soon realised the tooling on their Haas machines was still potentially holding them back from reaching their true potential. 

“Traditionally, the company made its own tooling in-house,” Tom continues. “It kept costs down, but it didn’t take into account the time and resource to do so.” 

To help bring the company’s tooling in line with their ambitions for growth, DaceCrown turned to MSC Industrial Supply Co. UK. 

MSC application engineers visited DaceCrown over several weeks to immerse themselves in the business and gain firsthand experience of the tooling challenges facing Tom and his team. 

The trials also coincided with the testing stage of MSC’s newly-launched MSC EDGE range of multipurpose solid carbide holemaking and milling tools. In turn,  DaceCrown acted as a vital field test site providing critical performance data to MSC throughout the testing process. 

A variety of materials and toolpaths were tested during the trial and following its completion, DaceCrown were supplied with a set of 4, 8 and 12mm MSC EDGE endmills which have enabled the team to handle a wide range of materials and applications without having to regularly change tooling.

“It was an instant game changer. We went from a 1-minute 50-second cycle time down to 10 seconds. It was a case of plug and play; put the tool in, set the speeds and feeds and press go. We’ve used them on stainless steel, mild steel, structural steel, and aluminium. We can do pocket milling, milling into holes that were drilled too small, and we’ve also done some profiling work,” Tom adds.

“The best thing is, we can keep them in the tool magazine which reduces our set up times. And, even though we are running at higher speeds and feeds, we’ve found the MSC EDGE tooling to be very durable, so we don’t have to replace them as often as we used to with our previous supplier. This means we can not only complete jobs faster and turnaround work for our customers quicker but also keep our own tooling costs down.”

Having unlocked new levels of productivity, the future of the business is looking increasingly bright for DaceCrown. 

“We’ve always strived to deliver the best possible quality for our customers. The parts we supply touch the end product last, so if we make a mistake then the whole line can go down.  Quality is everything for us and our customers, therefore if it's not right, it’s not leaving our facility,” Tom concludes. 

“We’re always looking at ways we can push the boundaries of what is possible. We don’t want to be just another supplier, we want to be partners that add value, much like MSC has become for us.”

For more information on MSC Edge, please visit mscdirect.co.uk/msc-edge