West Pharmaceutical Services
£2.5 million investment for West Pharmaceutical Services
Global giant West Pharmaceutical Services is a pharmaceutical technology company with headquarters in Lionville, Pennsylvania. It has had a presence in Cornwall since 1968 and now has facilities at St. Austell and Bodmin, where it manufactures and supplies medical devices and pharmaceutical systems for the medical industry worldwide. As part of a worldwide group, West Pharma’s client list is also global. Their success can be measured by the fact that each day, around the world, more than 74 million West Pharma products are consumed.
The company is part way through a £2.5 million investment strategy. In the last 18 months their Bodmin machining site has doubled in size and they’ve taken on another 16 personnel. West Pharma’s impressive stable of Haas machines has been joined by yet another VF-8 vertical machining centre. The new machine will be cutting moulds from stainless steel.
“Our machines work 24 hours a day, so they must be reliable,” explains plant manager Paul Dunn. “The mould plates have anything from 500 to 10,000 cavities in them so the machine has to be quick and accurate. The Haas VF-8s have been perfect for us; they’re half the price of anything else out there and do the job without any issues. We look after our machines, we do our own daily and weekly checks and we have a Haas service contract.”
The Haas VF-8 vertical machining centre has 1626 x 1016 x 762 mm xyz travels and is built using all American-made cast-iron components. Customer feedback coupled with the relentless pursuit of perfection sees advancements and design-enhancing changes incorporated directly into the production line every day. The Haas VF-8 is a rugged VMC that yields full reliability and accuracy in a large-framed machine.
The VF-8 has a 40-taper cartridge spindle powered by a 20 hp vector Dual-Drive. The VF-8 produces either 75 ft-lb of torque at a low 1400 rpm, or 250 ft-lb at 450 rpm with the optional 2-speed gearbox and will also run up to 7500 rpm in 1.2 seconds for finishing aluminium.
