French firm is committed to Delcam

To mark the occasion, Delcam managing director, Hugh Humphreys (left), presented a plaque to Laroche general manager, Hervé Pouyet (right), during a recent visit to Delcam’s Birmingham headquarters from his company’s base to the north of Paris. Laroche was initially founded more than 100 years ago to machine small mechanical parts and tooling. Now, the company specialises in high-added value prototypes and small production runs of parts for the automotive, aerospace, defence and medical markets. It machines all types of materials, including titanium, Inconel and stainless steel, and is now moving into composites. Well known customers include Peugeot, Citroen and Renault in the automotive industry, and Snecma/Safran, Dassault and Eurocopter in the aerospace sector. Laroche has also supplied components for the Ariane space programme. Introducing its first NC machine in 1977, the company now has 24 CNC machines. Of these, 10 are high speed machines, while 11 have 5-axis capabilities. Laroche was one of the first French companies to introduce high speed machining more than 17 years ago. The range of high speed strategies in PowerMILL is one of the reasons why Mr Pouyet has always been reluctant to move from his Delcam software. Laroche was also a pioneer of 5-axis machining, at a time when Delcam offered limited support for the technology. “My one frustration with PowerMILL came after we installed our first 5-axis machine some six years ago,” admitted Mr Pouyet. “However, since then, the 5-axis capabilities have got better and better, so I’m now very glad that I stayed with Delcam.” The most recent additions to the company's machine tool complement are dedicated machines for drilling and trimming of composites and other plastics. These have been used for large-scale projects, including the machining of 5-m-long helicopter blades made from a combination of composite materials and polyurethane resin. “France has high costs so we must stay in high-value markets if we are to continue to grow. PowerMILL is essential to our success, both because of the increased productivity and also because of the high accuracy it gives,” concludes Mr Pouyet.