Tornos Takes UK Market by Storm
With what is claimed to be the world's largest selection of turning centres under 32mm diameter capacity, Tornos is undoubtedly making significant increases to its market share in the UK. The remarkable success at Tornos, UK and Globally is the result of an aggressive R&D initiative and an investment in staff whereby the company committed itself to retaining all its development staff and skilled workers throughout the global recession.
Exiting the downturn, Tornos has developed its products at such a rate that it now has nine machines available for 20mm diameter components. Commenting on the company's progress in the UK, Tornos UK's Head of Subsidiary, Mr John McBride comments: "Our growth coming out of the recession has been credit to the strategy of our headquarters to develop new products and the investment in new staff in the UK, which has recently noted the arrival of experienced and respected names like John Stretton and Lee Thomas as UK Accounts Manager and Applications Engineer respectively. The Tornos strategy has been to provide the marketplace with machine tools specific to the needs of the individual end user. We now have a wide selection of turning centres for highly complex parts and more simplistic operations that cater for high or low volume workloads."
Tornos UK are pleased with the results so far for 2011 at the half year point; discussing this point Mr McBride continues: "Our rapid growth rate is credit to new machine lines like the Gamma and Delta that provide customers with excellent value for money. Additionally, our machines boast features like the guide bushless system that reduces bar waste for the end users. With material costs currently high, customers can reduce material costs by up to 15% with the bushless system. This is something that is giving customers major cost savings on our Delta, Gamma, Deco and Micro ranges. This is a Unique selling point to be able to switch from bush to bushless during a component changeover and is a major plus point for Tornos."
In the very competitive entry level machine sector our Gamma 20/6 is equipped with a Y axis on the counter spindle. This brings big advantages when quick set ups need to be made as all the tools can be centred via offsets on the control rather than mechanically on the tool holder. The extra flexibility gained on the Counter spindle with the Y axis also means that improvement in cycle times can be achieved by balancing operations on both ends of the machine more effectively. This arrangement is normally only found on high specification top end machines.
Another contributing factor to the company's growth is increased business levels witnessed by customers.
As Mr McBride states: "As the UK manufacturing industry continues to grow, we are well positioned with our range of turning centres to supply the solutions to meet the needs of the end user. We can now be competitive for business in low complexity component markets that we couldn't previously compete for. Additionally, we are now taking orders from customers that have not acquired machines for a considerable period due to market conditions. However, a large portion of business is from new customers and new industry sectors and we are really excited about these areas. We are now installing machines at facilities that have historically bought from our competitors and we are delighted with this development."
Tornos' relentless strategy of developing new solutions will see the company introduce a number of new solutions at EMO 2011 in September with additional product launches scheduled for 2012. For customers and manufacturers interested in viewing the new machines, but not able to get to EMO, Two of the new models at EMO, the EvoDeco 10 and the Delta 38/5 - Tornos first venture to bar turning above 32mm diameter will be shown at an Open House from October 11th to 13th at the Tornos UK facility in Coalville. The Open House will be supported by related suppliers to bring a full complement of services for turned parts. The suppliers will include Floyd Automatic Tooling, Blum Novotest, Rainford Precision, ITC, Kraft & Bauer, Blaser, Prospect Systems, Sandvik and Lease UK.