In order to meet the increased demand and diversity of its customers' requirements, toolmaker and press shop Simplefit of Southampton has opted for the latest hydraulic press technology from PJ Hare of Bristol. Having spent GBP200,000 on developing its plant over the past year, the company decided to increase the versatility of its press capacity by investing in Hare's latest 630kN digital hydraulic press. Ian Macdonald, Managing Director, explained: 'With a large and varied subcontract customer base we needed to make sure that every penny we spent on plant and machinery took account of their differing needs.

We could have taken the short-term view and bought low cost mechanical presses from the Far East, however these would have been process specific and thus by their nature inflexible for varied tasks.

Hare's new digital press made much more sense with its versatility, speed and the associated productivity and quality improvements provided by hydraulic power.' The introduction of the 63HPD follows the success of its non-digital predecessors, the 80HP and the 63HP, installed at Simplefit in 1994 and 1996 respectively.

Simplefit's 35,000ft2 factory currently houses 50 presses ranging from 100 to 1600kN.

Over the next five years Mr Macdonald anticipates adding a further three presses annually to meet demand.

He continued: 'For a flexible press shop hydraulic presses have many advantages over their mechanical counterparts.

The new digital press has further benefits.' The 63HPD stores the press settings for each tool in its memory, and via its touch screen, jobs can be set-up in a matter of seconds - a tremendous boon for small and medium production runs.

Downtime for a complete tool-change can be halved.

Another productivity enhancing feature of the digital press is its ability to optimise stroke speed for each job.

When working below its full load capacity the speed of the stroke can be increased.

For instance at 63tons the pressing speed is 34mm/sec, whilst at 30tons it can be increased to 68mm/sec.

Having tested the digital press prior to purchase, Dave Gill, Production Manager for Simplefit, added: 'The increased ram speed and the integral lightguards have allowed us to double productivity on pick and place work on most applications.

The inclusion of a retractable hydraulic die cushion has also helped.' Gill continued: 'Pneumatic die cushions often need to be reset up to 15 times a day, however the Hare hydraulic cushion is easier to set and maintains its settings throughout the day as it relies upon controlled hydraulic pressure rather than the vagaries of air pressure.

This eliminates forming variations attributed to differing material finishes.

Considerable time is saved by not having to work back through batches to check for product deviation.' By developing their successful HP range of hydraulic presses and applying the latest technology, Hare engineers have set new standards of press shop productivity with the HPD range.

The combination of digital control and fast hydraulic power will prove hard to beat.