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

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/

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

Confidence within the manufacturing sector continues to increase, as reflected by a growing order book at XYZ Machine Tools. Invoiced sales and new orders for the first six months of its financial year show a strong recovery from the previous year and are now at pre-pandemic levels. This continuing growth in sales has prompted XYZ Machine Tools to review its machine order and build strategy. Planning as far ahead as October 2022, XYZ will be able to maintain the traditional high machine stock levels held at its Devon headquarters.

“Supply chains have been a common topic in the news recently,” states Nigel Atherton, managing director. “We are therefore planning ahead and currently have 263 machines in transit to the UK, with a further 600 machines in the pipeline. This commitment will ensure that we can continue supporting our customers by responding as quickly as possible to their orders.”

For further information
www.xyzmachinetools.com

Mills CNC, the exclusive distributor of Doosan machine tools in the UK and Ireland, has introduced a new bridge-style vertical machining centre into the market. The BVM 5700 is a premium machine that, owing to its rigid design and build, is said to deliver high levels of accuracy, flexibility, machining performance and reliability.

The machine’s stability is the foundation for its performance. A rigid, thermally stable construction ensures that thermal deformation is minimised and, as a result, high accuracy is possible irrespective of workpiece material or machining parameters.

Says Tony Dale, CEO of Mills CNC: “There is a tendency among some manufacturers to think that bridge-style machining centres are only for large part processing. This is not the case.With the BVM 5700, Doosan have focused their efforts on creating a compact, powerful and highly rigid machine with a wide application potential and appeal. Irrespective of whether high material removal or super-fine finishing are required, the BVM 5700 delivers.”

The BVM 5700 offers travel distances of 1050 x 570 x 460 mm in the X, Y and Z axes, and a well-proportioned work table measuring 1300 x 570 mm, with a 1000 kg maximum table load. A 30/40 tool ATC with a 1.3 second tool-to-tool changeover time supports rapid traverse rates of 42 m/min.

The machine’s built-in BT40 spindle (37 kW/15,000 rpm) can generate 214 Nm of torque.

Doosan’s BVM 5700 features the Big Plus dual contact face and taper spindle/tooling interface and a smart thermal compensation system comprising multiple sensors strategically positioned around the machine. The machine is equipped with the Doosan Fanuc i Plus control featuring 15” touchscreen and intuitive iHMI.

For further information
www.millscnc.co.uk