Chester-based Creative Play is one of the UK’s leading designers, manufacturers and installers of high-quality playground equipment. Founded in 1991 by the father of current Managing Director, James Harris, the company has established itself as the benchmark for excellence in the industry with an impressive track record of crafting over 14,000 captivating play areas for a diverse range of customers including schools, nurseries, holiday parks, local councils, pubs and farm parks.
At its modern workshop, Creative Play already has three flatbed CNC routers for cutting and shaping panel parts, plus a combination of manual rip saws, crosscut saws and drills for processing solid wood parts measuring up to 120 x 90mm and up to 4m in length. James was conscious that having so many manual operations was time-consuming and unproductive, leading him to look for a CNC machine capable of carrying out all of these different operations.
Creative Play’s Product Design Manager, Amy Parry, came across JJ Smith when researching CNC machinery and contacted Guy Stanley about a Comec MD CNC machine.
“As soon as we saw the machine we could see it was a quality piece of kit and extremely well engineered,” says Creative Play’s Managing Director, James. “When we saw it in action we were completely blown away with drilling, cutting and shaping all carried out on one machine from a single program.”
The agreed model, the MD TOP XXL, has a maximum working length of 4500mm, or two separate working fields of 2000mm working in tandem. The head configuration was 1 x vertical electro spindle working in the C axis, interpolated at 360 degrees, an aggregate head for sawing or drilling, an additional vertical electro spindle, one horizontal electro spindle plus a drill head with five exits, giving the ability to drill deep holes on the top, sides and ends.
Following a visit to the Comec factory in Italy for final testing, James comments, “Given this was going to be a significant investment for us, it was important to visit the Comec factory to get a better feel of who they are and what they do.
“To say I was impressed was an understatement. This is a serious company making serious machinery. Everything about Comec oozed professionalism, and it was reassuring to know JJ Smith have a very close working relationship which I understand stretches back over 20 years.”
Creative Play feels the Comec CNC will prove a real ‘game changer’ by boosting production and enabling the design and machining of parts that they could not do before.
“Working on this project with James and his team has been a pleasure,” adds Guy Stanley, Sales Director at JJ Smith. “They have shown great receptiveness to new ideas and approaches. I’m confident that moving forward they will discover more things that the machine can do.”
For further information or to arrange a demonstration, contact JJ Smith.
0151 548 9000
