Citizen Machinery UK Open House scores immediate success: more to follow

"More than 250 customers came along to make this one of our most successful events. In particular, on Wednesday, the atmosphere was 'electric', with interest being shown and intense discussions from 8:30 in the morning to 10:30 at night, when the last customers left after our curry evening," managing director Geoff Bryant reported. Three new machines were launched at the event, the 32 mm capacity Evolution A-Series non-guide bush Citizen A32-VIICL, the fully integrated Miyano LZ fixed-head production turning centre with self-load and unload and the re-launched Citizen B-Series, low-cost sliding-head lathe in 12 and 16 mm capacity. In addition to the new launches, there were a further eight machines from across the Citizen and Miyano range running demonstrations. Said Mr Bryant: "Over and above the 10 orders taken, our sales and applications team have a host of quotations and follow-up visits to make over the next few weeks. This will no doubt add to our order tally, because there was such a positive level of interest right across the range of machines on view. "Scanning the customer list who attended, around 90% were from the subcontract industry sector, with most confirming rising order books, the need for additional capacity and, in particular, to significantly reduce lead time through more efficient single-cycle production." Meanwhile, engineers from the OEM sector were looking for solutions to increase productivity and lower production costs, with several having new projects to 'tool-up'. Here, both the Miyano and Citizen machine configurations drew interest related to unmanned running, based on bar sizes between 1 mm and 64 mm diameter. In addition, the Miyano LZ fully automated turning cell, with the ability to accommodate hard turning to offset the need for grinding, was subjected to very detailed examination and an early order is expected.