Guildford, Surrey, April 2, 2009 --- Alexander Dennis' chassis manufacturing facility in Guildford has just taken delivery of an advanced all-electric tube bending machine from Unison. The machine will be used for in-house production of many of the custom tubular components - including hydraulic brake pipes, air conditioning ducts and exhaust pipes - that are hidden inside the chassis of vehicles once they have been built.

Alexander Dennis Limited is Britain's leading manufacturer of single and double deck buses, and coach chassis. The company's principal markets are the UK, the Far East and North America. It supplies all of the UK's major bus operators - 70% of London's fleet of 8,000 buses are Alexander Dennis models - and is the market leader in Hong Kong. Alexander Dennis operates three large manufacturing facilities in the UK; chassis production is handled at Guildford, and body production is handled at Falkirk in Scotland. In 2007, the renowned Scarborough-based coach builder Plaxton also became part of the Alexander Dennis Group of companies, making it the UK's largest bus and coach builder.

According to Brian Davidson, Chief Operating Officer for Alexander Dennis, "We were originally looking for an electro-pneumatic tube bending machine to replace an existing hydraulic unit - we wanted something that could handle a wider range of tube sizes and shapes, at lower cost. However, following an exhaustive six-month technical evaluation, during which time we looked at a number of competitive tube bending machines, we decided that Unison's all-electric technology was a better option. Unison subsequently won our business in a competitive bid, based on technical capability, capital cost and projected cost of ownership."

"The fast, software-controlled set-up of an all-electric tube bender is very well suited to the bus and coach manufacturing process, as the production batch sizes tend to be small," says Jim Saynor of Unison. "In this environment, continual reconfiguration of the machine could otherwise eat up a lot of time. The all-electric Breeze machine gives Alexander Dennis the responsiveness to react rapidly to changing production requirements, producing parts as and when they are needed."

The Unison tube bending machine being supplied under the terms of this order is a three-axis, single-stack Breeze 130, which is capable of handling tubes and pipes up to 130 mm (5 inches) in diameter.

In place of hydraulic force, the Breeze 130 employs servo motors to control the bend process, including clamp, pressure die, mandrel and follower. This all-electric actuation provides significant benefits related to energy consumption, repeatability, and noise reduction. As the actuation elements of the machine only draw significant current when a bend is being made, energy usage is greatly reduced.

Each of the tools employed during bending is under software control, providing almost instant changeover of tools and allowing users to create smooth and accurate bends. Once the machine is set up, operating parameters can be stored, allowing machines to be reconfigured for another part or batch in a few minutes, without creating any scrap. Among Unison's latest technology advances is a laser measurement system that dynamically measures the accuracy of bend angles and automatically compensates for any errors.