The NEC Birmingham will once again play host to Smart Manufacturing Week (SMW), the
UK’s largest festival of advanced manufacturing and engineering on 4-5 June 2025. SMW
(www.smartmanufacturingweek.com) brings together a strong line up of events, including
Smart Factory Expo, Maintec, Drives & Controls, Design + Engineering Expo and the Air-Tech
and Fluid Power and Systems zones.
Building on the success of the 2024 event, which attracted 13,500 visitors, more than 450
exhibitors and 200 speakers, SMW 2025 is poised to deliver an even larger, more ambitious,
and more transformative event, with more international manufacturers and engineers
expected to visit. Free visitor registration is now open and a limited number of Premium
Plus Visitor passes are available for purchase.
Reflecting on the 2024 event, which was named Best Tradeshow at the Conference & Events
Awards 2024, Malcolm Greenhill of Charter Controls, says: “This is the best exhibition we’ve
ever done, and I’ve been participating in exhibitions at the NEC since 1983.”
Charter Controls returns to SMW in 2025 as a Platinum Partner, underscoring its trust in the
event.
Emphasising the ‘must see’ nature of the event is the presence of prominent exhibitors
including Schneider Electric, FANUK UK, 3M, Epicor, Binder UK, Cembre, Ericsson, Hoffmann
Group and ifm Electronic. Alongside other big names, the exhibition floor will showcase the
most influential players in industry.
Amongst these giant technology players are cutting-edge start-ups and innovative small
businesses set to revolutionise the sector. At the heart of Smart Factory Expo, ‘Innovation
Alley’ will feature emerging manufacturing technologies with exhibitors across four key
categories: ‘people’ focusing on wellbeing, workforce management, recruitment, training
and skills; ‘product’ centring on design, R&D and materials; ‘process’ concentrating on
productivity, resilience, supply chain and AI; and ‘planet’ encompassing net zero,
sustainability and energy management.
Following the success of 2024, where attendees engaged with the latest solutions from the
next wave of technology and consultancy businesses, the 2025 event will provide
opportunities to meet start-ups and early-stage companies and their founders, uncovering
transformative technologies that promise to shape manufacturing over the next decade.

Visitor trails offer an exciting way to explore the vast show floor, guiding attendees to the
most relevant exhibitors and must-see presentations. From automation and robotics to
sustainability, industrial data and AI, and product innovation and design, these thoughtfully
curated pathways make it easy to navigate the show and ensure visitors will not miss out on
the show’s highlights.
The free educational programme is comprehensive, with seven solutions theatres dedicated
to addressing a wide array of topics including: digital transformation, industrial data and AI,
the IIoT and connectivity, design and innovation, automation and robotics, leadership and
strategy, and maintenance. New this year is the ‘Technology Showcase Theatre’, where
visitors can see and get their hands on an array of cutting-edge innovations. Offering a rare
glimpse into future developments and prototypes, the theatre will feature everything from
advanced robotics to wearable technologies, bringing the next generation of breakthroughs
to life.
In addition, SMW 2025 will continue its commitment to inspiring future engineers and
manufacturers through its dedicated STEM programme, sponsored by returning Platinum
Partner FANUC. Now extended to focus on school-year students, as well as those in further
education, hundreds of pupils and apprentices will have the chance to interact directly with
industry experts, offering a hands-on introduction to the exciting world of advanced
manufacturing and engineering.
As in previous years, 2025 will also play host to several satellite events, such as The
Manufacturer Top 100 Awards and the Manufacturing Digitalisation Summit. This two-day
conference for senior leaders, which attracts many of the top 250 manufacturers from
across the UK, is focussed on the application of digital technologies to enhance the
processes, efficiencies and outcomes of the manufacturing industry.
On the fun side, the much-loved Guitar Legends competition will make a return, with a 3D-
printed guitar awarded to the winner. Adding to the festival atmosphere, The Shadow
Monkeys will return with their signature high-energy, crowd-pleasing hits to close out the
first evening’s visitor party.
For those with entrepreneurial ambitions, this year’s event introduces a new feature: ‘Smart
Tank’. Designed to inspire and empower budding innovators, this platform invites
entrepreneurs to pitch their business ideas and product concepts to a panel of industry
experts. Additionally, event attendees can explore the dedicated technology demonstration
area, where new solutions will be showcased, offering a detailed look into some of
industry’s most exciting developments.
Smart Manufacturing Week continues to prioritise sustainability, returning as a carbon-
neutral event in 2025. In collaboration with Forest Nation, the organisers have pledged to
plant one tree for every attendee, a practice introduced in 2023 that has helped reduce the
event’s environmental impact while supporting global reforestation efforts.
“Smart Manufacturing Week 2025 is laser focused on the visitor experience while ensuring
exhibitors have the best opportunity to connect with their target customer base,” says

managing director Grace Gilling. “We create a festival-type atmosphere that’s entertaining
as well as a fantastic opportunity to connect businesses, encourage innovation and create a
platform for industry-shaping conversations.”
Smart Manufacturing Week will take place at Birmingham’s NEC on 4-5 June 2025. Other
exhibitions are also taking place at the NEC at the same time, and these include:
Automechanika run by Messe Frankfurt; Med-Tech Innovation Expo and TCT 3Sixty from
Rapid News Group; and Subcon from the Mark Allen Group. One visitor badge provides
access to all events.
Register for free at https://bit.ly/4iy8LxT

APF Services, a small but progressive two-man business specialising in hydraulic repair work,
has invested in its first CNC machine, a Proturn RLX 425 CNC lathe with ProtoTRAK control
from XYZ Machine Tools. Despite concerns about the cost and learning curve involved in
transitioning to CNC, the portfolio of cost-effective, easy-to-use machines available from
XYZ completely allays such apprehensions for small manufacturing businesses. APF Services
is a case in point, where the arrival of the new XYZ CNC lathe is driving cycle time reductions
of up to 90% on certain jobs.
Located near Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, APF Services was founded in 2012 by Chris Dawson
to provide hydraulic repairs for a host of local industries, including agriculture, forestry,
fishing, oil & gas, and waste/landfill.
“We have a good regional niche in these sectors,” he says. “However, we were managing
our workload using two manual lathes and a manual mill, which started to prompt concerns
about getting left behind. Turnaround time is paramount for our customers, with requests
for next-day delivery commonplace. However, I’d never dreamed of going into CNC as I
didn’t know the first thing about it.”
By chance, Dawson noticed that a nearby customer in the forestry industry was benefiting
from a range of CNC machines with ProtoTRAK controls from XYZ.
“I subsequently went to see a demonstration of a Proturn RLX 425 CNC lathe at XYZ’s
Scotland facility in Livingston,” he says. “As my first-ever experience of a CNC machine, I
wanted to be 100% sure I could get to grips with the programming, but I needn’t have
worried. For first-time CNC machinists like me, the ProtoTRAK control is absolutely
excellent. The 15.6-inch touchscreen makes the control simple and intuitive, while the
TRAKing feature allows us to wind the handwheel through the program with complete
control, providing peace of mind as we cut our first chips on a new part.”
XYZ’s Proturn RLX 425 CNC lathe with ProtoTRAK control, which is now fully operational at
APF Services, offers a 7.5 kW spindle and delivers power through a three-speed headstock
running up to 2500 rpm. The machine features an 80 mm spindle bore, provides 700 mm
swing in the gap and 480 mm swing-over-bed, and is available with a distance between
centres of either 1.25 or 2 m.
“We had our training at XYZ’s Livingston facility and could ask as many questions as we
wanted. Nothing was too much trouble.”

APF Services uses its RLX 425 to produce a host of hydraulic cylinder rods, pins and bushes,
typically as one-off jobs but occasionally in small batches. Features include threads,
shoulders, chamfers, O-ring grooves and circlip grooves.
“With so many different hydraulic cylinder designs, we can find ourselves machining almost
anything,” says Dawson. “Materials extend from EN8 and EN24T steels, through to chrome-
plated steel, stainless steel, and cast steel. Having a machine that’s versatile and quick to
program is a real blessing.”
Cycle times are dramatically shorter, as revealed by a recent in-house time study involving a
machining operation on a batch of hydraulic cylinder components.
“It took just 4 minutes 30 seconds on our new RLX 425 and we weren’t even pushing it
hard,” says Dawson. “The same job took 45 minutes on one of our manual lathes. That’s a
90% reduction in machining time.”
The company also reduced the cycle time for hexagon end caps – machined from 9-inch
diameter stainless steel bar – from 12 hours to just 2 hours. He also recalls saving a
staggering five days of machining time on a batch of cylinder parts.
“We completed them in five days, instead of the 10 days it would have taken us to do them
manually. And that’s when we were still learning about the RLX 425.”
According to Dawson, customers return because he understands the demands of their
industry, particularly the agriculture and oil & gas sectors, as he comes from a farming
background. Furthermore, there is little anyone can teach Chris about customer support,
having worked in the North Sea drilling and subsea construction industry for many years –
and subsequently as a hydraulic mechanic for a major subsea engineering company. With
this experience, he knows what is expected of third-party companies and the demands put
upon them.
“If one of my agriculture customers damages or even destroys a hydraulic cylinder in the
middle of harvest, for example, time is literally money,” he explains. “We can be looking at
several days for the delivery of a replacement component in our part of the world, which is
disastrous for harvesting. We can measure the broken part [or make it from the carboard
cut out that is sometimes supplied], repair it or reverse engineer a replacement in ultra-
quick time. Sometimes there are no drawings or CAD models, so it relies on our engineering
background/expertise to get these customers going again.”
Fortunately, the arrival of the Proturn RLX 4525 is making the process easier than ever
before.
“The speed of the machine and quality of finished parts is top notch. The business was
already growing, but the RLX 425 has taken us to a whole new level.”
Such has been the positive experience that APF Services has just ordered another XYZ
machine, an RMX 3500 CNC bed mill, again with ProtoTRAK control.

“Once I’m happy with a supplier they’ll continue to get my business,” concludes Dawson. “I
like the way I can pick up the phone and get advice from someone in the UK. It feels like
we’ve got proper support with XYZ. This level of customer service is priceless for a small
company like ours, which is new to CNC machining and has customer jobs that often cannot
wait.”
More information www.xyzmachinetools.com