The Materials Testing Team at the National Composites Centre (NCC) has recently completed a year-long trial of the Compcut 200 with very positive results in terms of overall performance, usability, adaptability and technical precision.
The NCC already employed a large bespoke designed Sharp & Tappin Plate Saw and had approached Sharp & Tappin to explore options for a smaller more flexible unit that could meet an increasing internal demand for speedy small sample cutting across a range of material types, whilst meeting a comprehensive set of technical and operational criteria.
Small batch sample cutting at NCC had previously involved manual cutting with inherent accuracy issues and a time-consuming admin process to arrange the operation. Following an initial trial demonstration, the NCC Material Testing Team installed the Compcut 200 in April 2018 and has been carefully monitoring its performance and effectiveness in a busy working environment.
The results have proved very positive with the Compcut 200 meeting and exceeding the Testing Team’s expectations, citing the following as key factors for its success:
a) Ease of use – requiring the minimum of training, the unit can be used by all the team
b) A self-contained unit that fits perfectly into an operational Laboratory environment
c) Fully enclosed housing -that improves operator safety
d) Speedy operational process – maximising throughput & reducing waiting times
e) Exceptional precision with superb cut quality, perpendicularity & parallelism
In additional to successfully meeting technical and operational criteria, the introduction of the Compcut 200 has had other dynamic effects on the Materials Testing Team’s core role.
The team are now able to react more swiftly to meet R&D and urgent testing requirements and are increasingly able to offer quick turnaround sample cutting services to other teams within the NCC – helping to position them as a responsive and proactive unit serving the wider organisation.
