Press-working cycle times have been halved at sheet metalworking subcontractor, Coleman Manufacturing, following the installation of a Finn-Power C5 turret punch press and Jetcam programming software from Press and Shear Machinery. Stainless steel, mild steel and aluminium in the thickness range 2mm to 5mm is processed mainly by Coleman, which also frequently cuts material up to 8mm on two plasma machines. In the past, if one broke down there was no back-up and a bottleneck would occur, as anything above 6mm could not be machined on the two older turret punch presses on site. The ability of the hydraulically-actuated C5 to punch 8mm mild steel provides the required back-up and eliminates the need to run night-shifts, as backlogs no longer occur. The Finn-Power press has 30 tonnes of punching force and capacity of 200kg on the table, which is moved around at up to 100m/min traversing speed. Thirty per cent of Coleman’s work is for the rail industry, ranging from fabrications used in rolling stock to single-piece, formed sheet metal seating.