When brothers Doug and Gary Ramsey took over the running of the family-owned sub-contract machining business, they decided that a radical new approach was needed to keep Jefferson Engineering Services ahead of the competition.

Over the years, the Ashford (Kent) precision engineering company's concentration on quality had been a key feature in attracting business from all parts of the country including customers in the medical, aerospace, scientific, telecomms and automotive sectors. But Doug and Gary realised that wasn't enough.

"Customers demand quality, of course," comments Doug, "but today they expect it as standard - and they are not prepared to pay a premium price to get it!"

"When we re-evaluated the business, we found that the cost of quality was too high with one-off's taking days to approve. Our aim was to provide customer-acceptable quality from the first without the need for costly returns backwards and forwards between inspection and production."The first move was to create a culture of quality ownership within the workforce and to attact the right type of staff who take pride in their job, and have a fierce determination to succeed. The next move was a concentration on the machine stock.

"We knew that only the very best machine tools would give us the volume of production and ease of setting we needed to provide us with that essential competitive edge.

"We are not afraid to invest in technology," continues Doug, "and when we do, it has to be the latest state-of-the-art from manufacturers and distributors we can trust. Why put in the same machines as our competitors, what edge does that give us?"

When their capital investment plans turned to machining centres their requirements for quality, right-first-time production and a speed of production unsurpassed by other machines on the market directed them to Chiron.

"We looked at all the relevant competitors," recalls Doug, "then we read about the Chiron FZ08. I was amazed at the machine's positioning speeds and particularly its 0.5 sec tool change. For us that meant more spindle utilisation and therefore more part production.

"All this talk about high speed machining doesn't mean a thing if you can't get the parts out of the machine. It's no use reducing the cut time to a nano-second and then taking over half the shift to change the tool, or position the workpiece. It's parts on the floor at the end of the shift that count!

"The FZ08 was the most expensive of the machines in its class - but it puts more parts on the floor, which ultimately means a lower cost per part. Luckily, our competitors have not realised this yet, which is good for our customers and, of course, good for us."

Jefferson's decision was made easier by the fact they already had a Chiron FZ12W. "The existing Chiron has been trouble free," states Gary, "which we couldn't say about all our machine tools. And the establishment of Chiron Werke UK Ltd has made the supply chain much simpler giving us seamless access to the manufacturer in Germany."

Jefferson's two Chirons are today processing variable batches of between 30 to 5,000-off.

With 26 employees, Jefferson's impressive expansion plans are on course - including the goal of doubling turnover over the next five years.

"Our policy will be to continue to invest in technology and to maintain our leading edge matching our skills and dedication with the right tools for the job."