Taking delivery of the HNC GV300 CNC grinder-groover in October 2022, BFS first used it for experimental research into grooving patterns, before it entered mainline production in March 2023.

Capable of both initial roller grinding and then groove patterning, the new machine has allowed BFS to rapidly produce rollers at a consistently high standard, even for highly complex patterns.

Jonathan Whitehead, sales director at BFS, told Printweek that the jump from three grinding machines to four – plus the new machine’s grooving capabilities – had allowed for a significant jump in productivity at its Haverhill factory.

He said: “It has opened up our grinding capacity, and has made the quality and [productivity] flow on grooving hugely increase: we can now offer a lot more bespoke work, for a range of industries.

“We used to be very subject to what we could achieve manually – we did a lot of work on normal lathes.”

Castling effects, he added, was one such area where automation has saved a huge amount of time for the factory’s craftsmen, who used to groove the rollers manually, too.

On more complicated patterns BFS used to have to send work out to be completed externally, but the new machine’s capabilities mean that is no longer necessary.

While the company’s high-speed grinder set made training on the GV300’s grinding capabilities relatively simple, Whitehead said it had been “a learning curve” for its grooving and CNC applications.

He added: “We’ve had a team of five of us overseeing it from an electronic and mechanical point of view, to try and learn. 

“Through the wealth of knowledge we have here on the team, it has actually been a relatively quick process to achieve the quality we wanted to get out of the machine.”

BFS employs 22 staff at its Haverhill site.