Order performance sees UK's Haas Automation gain Diamond Award

The award recognises the UK company's success in booking over 500 machine sales during the year. "We're delighted to have secured this award again," says Nick Remington, managing director. "Our strategy has remained the same throughout these difficult times. We re-invest heavily in customer back-up, with over £1 million spent last year alone. Haas is committed to ensuring our customers enjoy the best available support the industry has to offer. We have 30 full time factory trained engineers strategically located across the UK, each with their own Mercedes Vito support vehicle carrying £30,000 worth of common parts. "We're not perfect, however, we are determined to meet the high expectations our customers deserve. Our first-time fix rate is consistently over 90% and we are the only UK machine tool company to measure and publish this data. The year ahead offers further challenges and expansion with more engineers and support staff likely. Mr Remington continues: "Our business model is relatively simple being centred on customer satisfaction; hence we enjoy excellent repeat business coupled, with many recommendations and referrals. "I am confident that 2012 will offer further opportunities for Haas, if we continue to focus on what our customers need. Our growth over the past three years has been at a rate of circa 100 additional machines per year and during this time we have established ourselves as being the UK's biggest supplier of CNC machine tools by volume. Haas UK is relatively young, at 20 years, but already has over 6,000 installations, with Haas having over 130,000 worldwide. "Our last quarter is usually a busy period, but even so, sales exceeded even our expectations. New products, such as the ST-Series lathes, and the market leading vertical machining centres are driving growth across all regions. We're anticipating a strong 2012." Haas expects to sell over 14,000 machines this year, in fact, with every CNC machine designed and manufactured at the company's purpose-built, one-million-square-foot manufacturing facility in Southern California. Conclude Mr Remington: "It is our intention that when manufacturing companies think of CNC machine tools, they think of Haas. We have the products, the support and the people to guarantee that's the case. We have won various awards from best international dealer to best support and service, some presented by our UK peers in the industry and some by our USA factory, and these are always a welcome addition to recognise the efforts of our staff, but, ultimately, the true measure is sales growth."