Hurco end-of-year Open House delivers year-end £500,000 boost
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Orders for 10 machining centres and CNC lathes to the value of £500,000 were taken by Hurco Europe at its three-day Open House this month, during which it welcomed 75 engineers from 50 manufacturing companies.
David Waghorn, managing director, commented: "It capped a very successful year, which saw 130 companies buying our machines for the first time, representing 42% of annual sales.
"We are also grateful for repeat orders from our established customer base for helping to boost our 2013 turnover to within a whisker of our best ever year.
"A contributory factor was an increase in CNC lathe sales, up 57% on last year. Five-axis machining centre sales were also at a higher level than in 2012."
He added that the new appearance of Hurco machines and the availability of higher speed profiling (Ultimotion) and remote machine surveillance (Ultimonitor) software within the manufacturer's proprietary WinMax control, now on Version 9, all had a positive effect on business. These and other enhanced capabilities, notably full industry-standard NC compatibility, including for 5-axis cycles, are not only helping to drive new machines sales, but are also giving Hurco engineers a busy time scheduling control upgrades.
The Open House marked the UK debut of the VMX42SRTi 5-axis machining centre with B-axis head and flush table, as well as the VMX24HSi 3-axis, high-speed model with 18,000 spindle and 45 m/min rapids. The latter machine is the first in Hurco's range to use the HSK toolholder interface, specifically HSK 63-A. More machines will be equipped with this rigid, hollow-shank taper in the coming years.
The company also reports that, although there were no German-built Röders high speed, high precision machining centres in evidence this time, sales in the UK and Ireland of this Hurco agency line remain buoyant. Deliveries to mould makers are holding up well, while special production applications, like turbocharger and graphite machining, are increasing. Five-axis Röders models now account for more than 50% of sales, in fact.
Products and services from a number of partner companies were promoted at the Open House, including CADCAM software from Open Mind and Delcam; tooling from SGS, Gewefa, and PCM; coolant and cutting oils from MacInnes; Romheld and 1st MTA / Kitagawa workholding equipment and rotary tables; Renishaw probing solutions; and coolant extraction and filtration systems from Filtermist.
In addition, Hydrafeed exhibited an MV65 barfeed unit, the company recently having installed its third Hurco machining centre at its production facility in Milton Keynes.
