Another bumper year for Hurco

An open house held last month at Hurco Europe’s headquarters, showroom and technical centre in High Wycombe attracted 70 visitors from 30 companies. The company took orders valued at £450,000 over the two days, providing an excellent springboard into 2022. Managing director David Waghorn says: “Despite the difficulties of trading during Covid and some disruption caused by Brexit, we ended our financial year at the end of October 2021 with our second highest turnover ever, only a little less than our record year of 2018.”

Close to 300 Hurco machining centres and lathes were sold into the UK and Ireland market during the company’s latest financial year period, nearly one-third of which went to first-time users of Hurco machine tools. As a postscript, Waghorn mentions that Hurco Europe plans to continue increasing its number of service engineers. The company added two service engineers during 2021 and plans to recruit another three in 2022, which will bring the total to 25.

For further information
www.hurco.co.uk

Get it Made offers £10,000 grant

CNC machining services provider ‘Get It Made’ is offering a £10,000 grant to manufacturing start-ups led by under 30s. Those selected to receive the grant can spend the money on developing solutions to progress their chosen industry. The grant will provide manufactured parts (to the value of £10,000) and allow successful applicants to work with Get It Made’s engineers, resulting in a huge acceleration of the design and development process.

Get it Made’s manufacturing grant is available to start-up businesses that are smaller and currently less established in the manufacturing industry, and be led by a person under 30 years of age. The company must have launched in the past three years and have fewer than 25 employees. University-based research projects are also eligible for the grant. Applications close at midnight GMT on 31 March 2022.

For further information
https://get-it-made.co.uk/grants/under-30s/

Automation draws attention at Blechexpo

Bystronic customers know that with powerful machines and optimised processes they obtain solutions that make them even more competitive. Accordingly, there was considerable interest at the recent Blechexpo 2021 exhibition in Germany, where Bystronic presented its latest technology in the areas of laser cutting, software and services.

In addition to manual production, a clear focus was on the topic of automation. Here, it was evident that Bystronic supports its customers, step by step, on the way to fully automatic production. Numerous customers came and showed great interest in the company’s solutions.

In his technical presentation on the topic of smart factories, Thorsten Stahl, product manager for software services, illustrated to the audience that anyone can venture the first step toward an intelligent factory. In doing so, he addressed everyday problems in production, and in particular, how they can be overcome with the BySoft Suite.

“We can digitalise your processes and present your business procedures in the digital world, and you can carry out agile, smooth and transparent production,” he said. “A smart factory is not for the faint of heart, but also not impossible.”

A further highlight was the Blechexpo Innovation Prize, now secured by Bystronic for the fifth time. The award is presented to the most outstanding exhibits. On this occasion, Bystronic was recognised (together with its collaboration partner AIRCO Systems GmbH) as the most innovative enterprise of the year in the category of separation and connection technology with the Blechexpo Award for ‘AIRCO Infinit Mixgas’.

For further information
www.bystronic.com

Ward CNC appoints Scotland sales manager

Following the company’s recent period of growth, TW Ward CNC Machinery (Ward CNC) has further enhanced its sales network with the appointment of Fraser Lovatt (pictured right), who joins as regional sales manager for Scotland. Lovatt has over 40 years of engineering expertise, with experience of manufacturing in the oil and gas, aerospace, medical and general engineering sectors.
Ward CNC’s managing director Simon Whitworth says: “Our sales network goes from strength to strength with the addition of Fraser. His appointment is excellent news for our customers in Scotland, where we’ve been privileged to supply many high-quality machines to a number of outstanding organisations over the years. All customers can continue to expect a first-class level of service support and technical back-up.”

For further information www.wardcnc.com

New horizontal five-axis HMC

Japanese machine tool manufacturer Makino has introduced a new five-axis horizontal machining centre (HMC), which made its debut at the EMO exhibition in Milan last October. Productivity on a five-axis machine is sometimes lower than on a four-axis model, but not with the a800Z, according to sole UK and Ireland agent NCMT.

The jacket-cooled spindles provide the same power as on a Makino a81nx four-axis HMC. In addition, the standard 10,000 rpm BT50 (HSK-A100 optional) spindle takes just 2.7 seconds to reach maximum speed and is rated at 55 kW (25% DC), 27 kW (continuous), while torque is 721 Nm (10% DC), 305 Nm (continuous). An optional 8000 rpm spindle provides uprated power at 75/37 kW and higher torque at 1199/552 Nm.

By raising the rear X-axis guideway above the one at the front, the column travels over a slanted plane. This capability allows the efficient transfer of high cutting forces during heavy-duty machining, and maximises the rigidity of the machine structure. Furthermore, the design reduces the weight of the moving column, minimising jerk during acceleration and deceleration. The machining envelope is defined by axis travels of 1,280 × 1,200 × 1,325 mm, actuation being by cooled, large-diameter ballscrews.

Productivity and short idle times are ensured by up to 50 m/min cutting feed rate and 60 m/min rapids. Maximum weight of the fixtured workpiece on the 630 x 630 mm pallet is 1 tonne, excluding the weight of the pallet.

Makino’s a800Z has a high-capacity chip management system. The interior, near-vertical walls in the working area are stainless steel to minimise chip adherence and promote swarf evacuation via three channels in the machine base.

For further information
www.ncmt.co.uk