Internet bidding wins Rodmatic £2.65 million
subcontract business from USA

Orders worth up to £750,000 and the retention of an existing contract worth some £1.9 million were won by turning subcontractor Rodmatic Precision Engineering Co. through a recent Internet auction staged by a US multi-national company.

The auctioneers, selected and approved companies from around the world and during the two day event, around 38 different turning lots worth £9.1 million were put out to bid. Robert Rickman, Managing Director of Rodmatic said: "We won two additional lots valued at £750,000 made up of some 200 different components in various batch sizes. It was critical that our bidding was competitive to win additional work and retain an existing contract bringing the value of the orders to £2.65 million.

Rodmatic, based in Reading UK, was founded in 1963. The company built its business around traditional multi-spindle autos and produced components, many on long, high volume contracts, for fluid power related companies. Within the last year it has moved into smaller batch turning reducing change over times and installing a Traub and an Hitachi Seiki CNC lathe. Pathtrace's award-winning EdgeCAM software has also been installed to optimise production cycles and maximise machine utilisation by programming off-line.

Rodmatic, based in Reading UK, was founded in 1963. The company built its business around traditional multi-spindle autos and produced components, many on long, high volume contracts, for fluid power related companies. Within the last year it has moved into smaller batch turning reducing change over times and installing a Traub and an Hitachi Seiki CNC lathe. Pathtrace's award-winning EdgeCAM software has also been installed to optimise production cycles and maximise machine utilisation by programming off-line. Robert Rickman said: "As relative newcomers to CNC machining we have found EdgeCAM is invaluable to work directly from a CAD file to machining metal. Here EdgeCAM was critical in helping to win the Internet auction contracts as we could use the software to estimate cycle times for the different types of components." Robert Rickman, Managing Director of Rodmatic He explained how bidding for contracts was a challenging event especially when a key existing contract was up for auction. "However, our in-depth knowledge of the industry, new machines and the additional programming software made it possible to secure our existing work and even add another £750,000 of business."

Robert Rickman, Managing Director of Rodmatic