Southern Manufacturing & Electronics took place for the 25th time from 7-9 February at the Farnborough International Exhibition and Conference Centre and what an event it was to start the year, with thousands of visitors from across the world attending, to network and do business.
Last year’s event was held when Covid-19 was still very much in everyone’s minds, leading to a somewhat subdued show and slightly smaller attendance, but this year, there was a different feeling in the air and it felt much busier in terms of numbers, while the atmosphere was much more vibrant as visitors wandered the vast array of exhibitors who packed out the exhibition hall.
Many of the big industry’s biggest players were among the hundreds of exhibitors, including the likes of Citizen Machinery, Mills CNC, Haas, AMOB, Chester Machine Tools, Bruderer, Jinan Bodor, MecWash, Hurco, CGTech, Yamazaki Mazak, XYZ Machine Tools, MACH Machine Tools, NCMT, Hexagon, Guhring, Mapal, Matsuura Machinery, Starrag, Mitutoyo, Vision Engineering, Bowers Group, Industrial Tooling Corporation, YMT Technologies, Filtermist, Lehmann and Lang Technik, to name a few.
Some of the highlights, included on the YMT Technologies stand, where the Somerset-based company showcased its relatively new role as the UK supplier of Hardinge machine tools. On its stand, YMT exhibited a Hardinge Talent 51 machining centre that attracted the crowds along with a Goodway SW-20II turning centre.
Also very prominent was XYZ Machine Tools, which had two stands with one of these purely dedicated to the brand new TMC range of machining centres. This four machine range builds on the existing linear rail machines offered by XYZ, but with the added familiarity to many toolrooms of the latest ProtoTRAK control system.