Welcome for Chevin Tools at IMTS

Established in 1999, Chevin Tools is the Chicago-based provider of workholding equipment, toolholding products and sub-contract machining services with a client list that reads like a who’s who of global manufacturers, from the oil and gas industry through to the aerospace sector right down to machine tool manufacturers themselves. Chevin’s product range takes in the Coromant Capto® quick-change tooling system, live toolholders, cube and tri-form workholding, along with expanding mandrels and collet chucks. The Chicago site services clients across the whole of North America, and over the years has grown to include warehousing. Lead by company president Robert Johnson, Chevin Tools is currently investigating building a manufacturing center in the USA, and has so far located four possible sites of around 5,000 sq ft. Robert Johnson, said: “We are initially looking at manufacturing a range of toolholding equipment in the USA. We are now putting together a business plan for each site, but it is thought that whichever one is chosen will grow to around 15,000 sq ft in five years, and by then employ around 30 people. “The current Chevin office, which is in Rolling Meadows, around 20 miles from the downtown Chicago, broke through the $1 million turnover barrier in 2006. “The setting up of a manufacturing base in the USA came out of a strategic review of both businesses last year, and will allow extra capacity at the European sister company which we are already planning for by tapping into largely undiscovered areas, for us, such as India and China.” The company was established in 1953, and now has an annual turnover of $12 million, employing 60 people, including four apprentices, while investment is at record levels. The company is also fully accredited to BS EN ISO 9001:2000. All its products are designed and manufactured in a small Victorian market town in the north of England called Otley, which until the mid-1980s enjoyed a unique mix of industry, being noted as a place of both engineering (particularly printing presses) and farming. With the majority of the town’s engineering businesses now having disappeared, the company survived partly by looking well beyond the region for its customer base. Its production area is divided into five manufacturing cells named after rivers; Severn concentrates on toolholding products and live centers; Aire focuses on sub-contract machining, Delaware is responsible for bespoke work holding products, while North is the focus of the company’s development work. There’s also the Sulzer Cell, which is permanently contracted to Sulzer Pumps (UK) Ltd. Another feather in the company’s cap is that it is the only British engineer that is able to supply toolholding for Mazak’s entire range that is to the Japanese firm’s own specification, and this involves everything from designing in-house through to manufacturing. The company works in close association with machine tool and tooling manufacturers across the globe and has developed next generation toolholders for a broad range of companies including Sandvik, Mori Seiki, Okuma, Haas and Doosan, as well as Mazak. t.thorburn@chevintools.com