UK NEWS

Open Mind expands UK team

Open Mind Technologies, which last year posted record sales figures, has employed three new staff to help underpin the CAM software specialist’s growth levels. Karl Oram has joined after spending 25 years as a CADCAM specialist in Canada. Appointed as an application engineer, he will apply his experience to conducting demonstrations, on-site support and training for end users. In support, Joshua Harper and Cory Jamieson have also joined Open Mind, as application engineer and junior application engineer respectively.

Adrian Smith, managing director at Open Mind Technologies UK, says: “To underpin our continual growth, we have a strategy in place to employ more sales engineers and application engineers. It is the application engineers that will support new customers beyond the post-sales process with assistance for all technical queries. Our new recruits will enhance customer experience and service while supporting the sales engineers.”
For further information www.openmind-tech.com

Ford Engineering partners Gateshead College

Ford Engineering Group has chosen Gateshead College to deliver apprenticeships, workforce development programmes and traineeships as part of plans to upskill its existing staff and create engineering career opportunities for young people.

The first apprentices have already started, splitting their time between Ford Engineering’s sites across the region and the college’s Team Valley-based Skills Academy for Automotive, Engineering, Manufacturing and Logistics – a £5.5m purpose built facility that has seen recent investment of more than £300,000 in machinery and tooling.
For further information www.gateshead.ac.uk

100+ attend Dugard open house

More than 100 people attended Dugard’s recent two-day open house at the company’s headquarters in Hove. Many came from subcontract firms specialising in sectors such as automotive, aerospace, medical and general engineering, although representatives from a several large OEMs were also in attendance. The company says that 11 orders for machines were placed at the event, with lots of strong leads collected.

Dugard vertical machining centres proved popular, including the company’s range of five-axis models. Indeed, two five-axis machines were officially unveiled at the event: the large-capacity Dugard X5-800 and the X5-320. A number of turning machines were also introduced, including the Dugard 52SY Swiss-type CNC lathe, Dugard i42U production CNC lathe and Samsung SL2500bSY CNC lathe with Siemens control.
For further information www.dugard.com

Citizen plans additional UK facility

Citizen Machinery UK is to open a new regional office, applications engineering and machine showroom in the West Midlands to enhance its customer service offer and “provide users with a significant machine preparation service to support the growing number of high-value, automated turnkey solutions” being handled by the company.

The circa £2m investment on a 1.1-acre site at the Hurst Business Park in Brierley Hill, near Birmingham, will include a 600 sq m showroom. Construction is scheduled to start in early 2018 and the new facility is expected to be officially opened late next year.
The existing headquarters/showroom, where the majority of office-based staff are located, was designed for the traditional Citizen sliding-head business, but now additional showroom space is required to support increasing demand for the company’s 51 and 64 mm bar capacity turning centres.
For further information www.citizenmachinery.co.uk

Refurb centre chooses Turbex

One of the world’s largest papermaking machinery manufacturers has installed a Turbex aqueous cleaning machine to remove grease and oil from more than 30 different components during refurbishment.

The machine is also assisting the renovation of selected parts from rolling mills. With the company’s previous aqueous washer, it was awkward to load components as they had to be lowered in from the top. Additionally, larger parts were arriving to be processed which did not fit in the washing machine at all, so it was time for a replacement. The refurbishment centre eventually decided in favour of a Turbex AC 1.7 two-stage industrial cleaning machine, which is able to support parts weighing up to 2 tonnes.
For further information www.turbex.co.uk