VOLLMER Provides Blueprint for Success 2026-06-11

The decision to invest in a VOLLMER VHybrid 260 and bring tool production fully in-house is a decision that has delivered a 50% reduction in tooling costs since installation in January. Additionally, the new arrival has extended tool life by up to 1.5 times and given MPW the processing capacity to meet its current and future production requirements without being dependent on external suppliers.

The Tooling Challenge
MPW occupies a distinctive position in the additive manufacturing supply chain. To avoid the energy-intensive and expensive metal powder production route of conventional gas or water atomisation, MPW uses solid-state processing techniques to manufacture metal powders to order. The DirectPowder® process is proprietary, patented and, as Mitchell Wendel, the Operations and Engineering Manager at Metal Powder Works, explains, entirely dependent on the tools that drive it.

"Tooling is the heart of our DirectPowder® process. Owning the entire tooling lifecycle allows us to optimise performance, extend tool life and increase capabilities. It also ensures uninterrupted production for our customers while significantly lowering cost," says Mitchell.

The cutting tools now manufactured on the Vhybrid 260 and utilised at MPW are a proprietary design. To meet the extreme demands of the DirectPowder® application, the tools have been sourced from external suppliers. With the complexity of the tools, suppliers understandably charged a premium for cutting tool production.

"Because of the tool complexity, we paid a high margin on our tooling when getting them outsourced. The specification is very demanding, and that was reflected in what we were paying."

Four Years of Development - One Machine to Realize It
MPW had spent four years developing and refining its cutting tool designs, building the engineering knowledge to optimise geometry and performance across its material product range. What the company lacked was the manufacturing capability to act on that knowledge internally. With a patented production process, identifying a machine capable of processing tools to the tight tolerances and quality level was not a straightforward task. "We worked with VOLLMER of America to find a suitable machine with the flexibility to process both materials. The recommended machine selection was the VHybrid. VOLLMER was one of the few machine tool manufacturers that were up to the task, considering the tooling geometry is quite difficult."

The selection process was not simply about specification. As a business stepping into cutting tool manufacture for the first time, the level of technical support available proved to be the decisive factor.

"The main selling point of the VOLLMER machine was the engineering support. We are not a tooling company, so we needed support. VOLLMER of America went above and beyond to ensure project success and help us through the technical challenges when it came to our unique tool designs. We look forward to continuing to work with VOLLMER as our needs grow or change."

The VOLLMER VHybrid 260
The VHybrid 260 is VOLLMER's answer to the growing demand for a single, integrated platform capable of manufacturing and re-sharpening a multitude of cutting tool materials. The machine's dual-technology architecture combines conventional CNC grinding with disc erosion (EDM) in a single setup. This eliminates the need for separate machines and multiple setups, and the additional handling, lead time and tolerance deviation that results from multiple setups.

For tools up to 150mm diameter, the Hybrid 260 5-axis CNC tooling centre uses grinding wheels to produce carbide tools with high dimensional accuracy. For PCD tools that make conventional grinding impractical, the machine utilizes disk erosion – delivering ultra-precise erosion pulses for surfaces to a roughness of just 0.05μRa. The EDM process uses electrical discharge to erode material from the PCD tip at a microscopic level, allowing highly complex geometries to be formed with a degree of accuracy and repeatability unparalleled in the industry.

This combination made the VOLLMER VHybrid 260 the right choice for MPW. The company's proprietary tools, require both processes to be applied with equal precision. The ability to complete the full manufacturing sequence on a single platform, governed by consistent CNC programming, was fundamental to achieving the quality and repeatability that MPW's production process demands.

The machine accommodates tools up to 150mm diameter and 360mm long, enabling the complex geometries of MPW's tooling design to be programmed, produced and reproduced with consistent accuracy. VOLLMER's intuitive ExLevel PRO software supports the programming of both erosion and grinding operations from a unified interface, reducing operator learning curves and enabling faster changeovers between tool types.

Capacity, Consistency and Cost
The VHybrid 260 was purchased in October, delivered in December and brought into active production in early January — a swift implementation for a machine of its capability, a timeline Mitchell attributes in part to VOLLMER's hands-on technical involvement throughout the commissioning process.

In terms of output, the machine now enables MPW to produce a capacity that comfortably meets current production requirements while leaving significant headroom for growth. The financial impact has been equally substantial. The 50% reduction in tooling costs results directly from eliminating the cost of outsourcing that the complexity of MPW's proprietary tool demanded from third-party suppliers. Furthermore, the company no longer has concerns about supply chain reliability or consistency, as quality and supply are now managed internally. With the VHybrid 260 manufacturing cutting tools in-house, that margin stays firmly within the business.

Tool life has also improved significantly. Mitchell continues: "The VHybrid 260 has proven to produce more consistent, higher-quality tooling, leading to longer tool life and vastly improved machining performance. Controlling the process internally under our stringent quality control measures ensures greater consistency across the entire tool production process with the VHybrid 260. The consistently high quality, compared with the variable quality of the supply chain, has translated directly into tools that perform more reliably and for longer.“

That improvement in consistency extends to the powder production process itself. More reliable tools lead to more stable process conditions, tighter dimensional control and improved repeatability across production runs — outcomes that are directly felt by MPW's customers in the quality and predictability of the DirectPowder® powder they receive.

Looking Ahead
With the VHybrid 260 now established in production, MPW has also begun to explore the new design possibilities the machine enables. The ability to test different insert grades and geometries in-house, at speed and with controlled costs, creates opportunities for further performance optimisation that were simply not feasible when tooling was outsourced.

"With the addition of the VHybrid, it has opened new possibilities for design and insert grade testing to further optimise performance across our wide range of products."

For Metal Powder Works, the investment in the VOLLMER VHybrid 260 has done more than reduce costs. It has placed control of the most critical variable in its manufacturing process firmly back within the business — and in doing so, reinforced both the integrity of the DirectPowder® process and the company's ability to serve its customers with confidence.