Joss Engineering has installed a Jainnher JHC-18S four-axis CNC centreless grinder with collaborative robot loading, expanding its capacity to manufacture safety-critical aerospace and defence fasteners.
Supplied by RK International Machine Tools, the machine will operate at the company’s 70,000 sq ft facility in Barrow-in-Furness. A smaller JHC-12S centreless grinder is also being added as Joss extends its machining and finishing operations.
Centreless grinding removes material from cylindrical components without holding them between conventional centres or within a chuck. Instead, each part is supported between a grinding wheel, regulating wheel, and work-rest blade, allowing high production rates while maintaining close control over diameter, roundness, and surface finish.
Although the process is well suited to pins, shafts, fastener blanks, and other components produced in volume, aerospace work requires productivity to be achieved without weakening traceability or allowing dimensional drift, surface defects, and uncontrolled variation.
Four-axis CNC control manages wheel position, dressing, and process settings, while the collaborative robot automates loading and unloading. Repeating the handling cycle consistently should reduce variation between components and release employees from a repetitive task without removing the need for process supervision and quality control.
Russell Richards, managing director of Joss Engineering, said: “This investment in the Jainnher JHC-18S with cobot loading is not just about increasing volume; it’s about enhancing our precision, repeatability, and traceability.”
The grinder follows an investment of approximately £750,000 in an automated hot-forging machine. Together, the projects extend automation across separate stages of fastener manufacture, from producing the initial forged geometry to achieving controlled final dimensions and surface condition.
Founded in 1982 to support local shipbuilding, Joss Engineering has expanded into aerospace and defence components and holds AS9100D certification. Its fasteners are used in demanding structural and propulsion applications where a relatively small component can affect the integrity of a much larger assembly.
Automation enters specialist batch production
Fastener quality depends on more than the final diameter because material condition, grain flow, heat treatment, surface integrity, coating, and documentation all influence performance. Each operation must therefore remain connected to a controlled manufacturing route rather than being treated as an isolated production step.
Grinding is particularly sensitive to thermal and mechanical conditions. Excessive heat, poor coolant delivery, unstable support, or a deteriorated wheel can damage the surface even when the measured diameter remains within tolerance.
Automated handling can improve consistency by presenting each component to the machine in the same manner and maintaining a repeatable sequence between grinding and any associated gauging. Reliable operation still depends on gripper design, part orientation, batch control, fault recovery, and the management of components that do not enter the cell correctly.
Collaborative robots provide greater flexibility than large fixed automation systems where product variants and production quantities change regularly. They can be reprogrammed or redeployed more easily, although their classification does not remove the requirement for a full machinery risk assessment.
Grinding wheels, sharp components, moving workpieces, and surrounding equipment can still create hazards that require guarding, interlocks, restricted operating zones, or controlled speeds. The completed cell must be assessed as a complete system rather than assuming the robot alone determines whether employees can work nearby.
Process data is also becoming more important within subcontract manufacturing as aerospace customers demand evidence showing how parts were produced, which material batch was used, which measurements were recorded, and whether equipment remained within approved limits.
Connecting CNC settings, production orders, inspection results, tool condition, and operator activity can strengthen that traceability, provided records are structured correctly and protected against unauthorised alteration. The same data can help engineers identify recurring scrap, gradual process drift, and maintenance requirements before quality is affected.
With annual growth of approximately 25%, Joss is placing greater pressure on existing machinery and employees. Additional automated capacity allows output to increase without requiring labour to rise at precisely the same rate, although the equipment must remain sufficiently utilised to justify the investment.
Aerospace and defence manufacturers continue to manage strong demand alongside shortages of specialist skills and lengthy lead times for materials and qualified processes. By bringing more forging and grinding capacity under its direct control, Joss can reduce its exposure to external bottlenecks and coordinate production around customer schedules more closely.
The new cell should increase throughput and repeatability, but its full value will emerge when forging, heat treatment, machining, grinding, inspection, and documentation operate through one controlled and traceable route. Automation then becomes part of production assurance rather than an isolated exercise in replacing manual handling.
