Ingersoll EDM manufacturer acquired by OPS

Backed by the finance group 3i, German tool manufacturer, OPS, has taken over the former Ingersoll EDM machine builder to form OPS - Ingersoll Funkenerosion and has a new plant.

The alliance is perfect.

The tool manufacturer OPS and the Ingersoll Funkenerosionstechnik GmbH (Electrical discharge machines) are now combined into "OPS - Ingersoll Funkenerosion GmbH".

At the location of Ingersoll Funkenerosionstechnik in Burbach the new company is now moving into the building of approximately 6000m2 with a newly designed centre of technology and demonstration.

The comment of President Rainer Jung to this enterprising step: "The taking over of Ingersoll Funkenerosiontechnik by OPS was, due to the difficult market situation not an easy decision, but very attractive in the strategic points of view.

With the 3i Group a leading society of capital investment has been found, setting up the financial conditions for the take over of Ingersoll.

In this alliance it developes an international market leader combining electrical erosion and high speed milling.

Now the customers can be offered individual solutions in both technologies with a complete range of service." Synergy effects can be gained in purchase and technical development as well as in the construction of high quality machines", Jung explains further.

Both technologies - electrical erosion and high speed milling are used in the modern tool and die production.

The opinion of Dr Zander - Technical Director: "At the moment In Europe there is a change in the modern tool and die production.

The customer demands shorter lead times according to higher precision and lower costs.

This can only be achieved by using high effective software tools.

So the design and production must be connected with modern and automatic systems.

In the future the customer does not want to buy single machines and run them more or less economically - due to the education and qualification of the employees - but he is looking for a partner in technology giving him complete solutions from one source.

All over Europe the manufacturer OPS has an outstanding reputation concerning their high-speed-milling machines.

In the production of erosion electrodes as well as in the milling of hardened steel.

Ingersoll Funkenerosion (EDM) is one of the market leaders - with and without an automated system - in the production of electrical erosion machines.

Graphite gains more and more importance as material for the electrodes.

The introduction of the HSC (high-speed-cutting) technology has achieved a quantum leap in the manufacturing time of the graphite electrodes.

For the first time there is a partner in OPS-Ingersoll giving both techniques out of one hand: high speed cutting and electrical erosion with own concepts of automation including the additional software (CAD and CAM).

We do not just supply the machines to our customers and let them work with their own skills, we can supply the unique chain of technology.

This complete and successful service is now, due to the alliance even stronger." Rainer Jung: "According to the increasing high demands in tool and die production (life and precision) manual processes must be reduced to a minimum.

This is perfect in combining the HSC technology with the electrical erosion as well for the finishing working steps.

We have common customers using the combination HSC and graphite material for the electrical erosion.

They achieve a 50% reduction in production costs for their forming tools".

Matthias Schmidt, leader of the marketing department, is looking very optimistically into the future.

"Though the readiness of capital investments in Germany is very low because of the economical situation, we could increase in the last year.

On the market there are thousands of old machines which are not competitive on the new demands.

It is our job to persuade the customers to invest in these new technologies to be prepared for the time of increasing business.

With the new company OPS-Ingersoll and decided partners it will be a successful step for the economical production.

We have to point out this importance to our customers.

Besides Europe as the main market at the moment, especially Germany, France and Italy, the company recognizes a great chance for the increase in eastern Europe and overseas.

These markets are served with international partners and their own individual service and selling organization".

The long experience of both companies in the development of small and large machines, as well as the cooperation with important and strong partnerships is the ideal base in offering complete solutions for the production of tool and form machines all over the world.

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