Fiber laser and deburring machine have improved the production efficiency and manufacturing capability of MITS Alloy

The heavy-duty aluminum Ute tray and roof series of MITS Alloy have been greatly welcomed and demanded.
The company is headquartered in Newcastle and was founded by Tim Lightfoot and Tony Brooks in January 2015. Tim's existing business, Safety MITS, provides maintenance equipment for mining, earthwork transportation, transportation, and related industries. They jointly determined that the four-wheel drive Utes requires durable pallets, canopies, toolboxes, and maintenance mechanisms to withstand work and mine usage.

The company initially started manufacturing custom designed products and has now evolved to develop a range of standard modular pallets and canopies that are suitable for all popular Ute brands and models, and offer many optional accessories to meet personal preferences and needs.
The flexibility of modular design extends to the ability to remove pallets and canopies during sales and transfer them to another vehicle when needed.
The company naturally provides equally high-quality products to the emerging leisure off-road 4x4 market and the rapidly growing fleet/trade market in recent years.

Modern vehicles have a series of safety features, including a reverse camera, parking sensors, automatic braking, and blind spot detection. Many driver assistance devices are located inside the rear bumper; This requires MITS to develop its own wiring harness, wiring, and casing to ensure that these devices can function properly according to factory settings after installing the new tray.

In recent years, the demand for pallets and canopies has led to the need for new venues. Earlier this year, a coincidence occurred when a large factory across the street was put into operation. This facility is specially designed for MITS operations, with a manufacturing space of 2000 square meters, an assembly facility of 1800 square meters, and a powder coating area of 900 square meters, allowing all work to be completed under one roof.

The expansion and relocation of the company to larger factories have led to investment in new sheet metal equipment, enabling the company to introduce advanced manufacturing technologies, improve production efficiency, and expand manufacturing capabilities.
Since we purchased two Yawei bending machines before, we have established a good relationship with Applied Machinery. Yawei's performance and reliability have left a deep impression on us, so Yawei fiber laser is an obvious choice.

"The 6kW high-power fiber laser is very suitable for our main aluminum processing environment and greatly accelerates our cutting speed. In the past, we needed more than 16 hours and 5 days per day, but now it has been reduced to more than 23 hours and 3 days per week. We also have higher cutting consistency, excellent surface quality, and significantly reduced scrap rates," Lightfoot said.

The automatic loading/unloading function also saves the company a lot of time, reduces manual processing, and minimizes WH&S risks. All cutting is completed using only high-pressure compressed air.

"Although fiber lasers are excellent, our new Weber deburring machine saves the most time - it can quickly remove all sharp edges on parts, providing perfect surfaces and edges. We used to have four people working 16 hours a day to manually clean parts to ensure they were touchable. Now, we only need two employees, and we can complete a week of deburring work in just six hours a week, with much better quality," Lightfoot said.

Another benefit of the new equipment is that it enables MITS to produce more complex parts and reduce weight. More details can be added to the product, including logos and other aesthetic enhancements.
Yaweis offers high performance at a highly competitive price. We expect fiber lasers to achieve investment returns in just 12-18 months, as evidenced by this fact.

"The support and support from local suppliers such as Applied Materials Company are excellent. We have always found that the application team is very easy to deal with; they have good technical support locally and can quickly respond to us, providing solutions to any problems we encounter." Lightfoot said.

The company recently launched in the United States, and its products have found ready-made markets in the leisure "land" sector as well as more professional fields such as police, firefighting, and rescue vehicles.

The company has recently applied for ISO 1001 certification and is likely to see opportunities for these professional types in the Australian market.
Recently, MITS Alloy was named the 2022 Manufacturer (with 50 or more employees) at the Hunter Manufacturing Awards held in December last year, confirming MITS Alloy's success and recognition of its contribution to supporting local employment in Newcastle.

The future of MITS Alloy is undoubtedly bright, and Tim believes that the new factory and new Yawei and Weber equipment will assist the company in carrying out more contract manufacturing work. The company also ambitiously hopes to expand its business and market share in the United States in the coming years.

Source: Laser Net