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News Release from: 600 Group
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 17 January 2008
UK machine tool group growth continues
The UK's 600 Group of machine tool businesses has achieved growth, with good results from each of its manufacturers and substantial sales growth by the UK distributor 600 Centre.
The last twelve months have been very positive for 600 Group The Group has achieved growth in all areas of the business, with good results from each of the manufacturing companies and substantial sales growth particularly by the UK distributor 600 Centre
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 13 Apr 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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At the Half Year (30th September 2007) overall sales had increased by 14% and underlying order intake by 15% compared with last year, with the order book standing 18% higher than at this time last year.
Chief executive, Andrew Dick, said: "Our intention in developing the new strategy was to market a focused portfolio of branded machine tools, laser markers and technology solutions which provide quality, dependability, and service at their respective price positions through a customer-focused organisation.
This portfolio is marketed primarily to mature Western economies and the growing economies of Central and Eastern Europe.
To achieve this, the Group was divided into three distinct and complementary divisions: 600 Machine Tools, 600 Electrox Laser, and 600 Technologies.
The solid Half Year results are primarily due to implementation of this strategy." The Group has enjoyed significant growth especially in the European markets, including the UK.
The North American market has been less strong than anticipated, largely due to unforeseeable difficulties in the financial markets, but this is seen by the 600 Goup as only a short-term weakness.
* Group strength - strength of the Group is attributed to the reorganised distributor network across Europe, North America and the UK.
Don Haselton has been appointed President of 600 Incorporated and has created a much improved, more specialist and stronger, distribution network throughout North America and is already extending this successfully into Central and South America, with particular emphasis on Mexico.
Despite the financial difficulties in the area, the enhanced distribution network has performed well, providing better market penetration than could have been expected in the circumstances.
* Europe - the European distribution network has been reorganised into one unit, centred in Germany under recently appointed Willi Golmer.
Sales in Germany are 46% up compared with last year and the market in Eastern Europe remains very strong.
The other major market for 600 Group - South Africa - continues to reflect the positive trends that have been seen over the last three years.
* UK growth - most significant growth has been in 600 Centre.
Turnover has doubled compared with last year, with a corresponding doubling of staff numbers, mainly due to employing additional application and sales engineers to move forward the 600 Centre's brief to provide high technology applications-led solutions to individual manufacturing requirements.
Additional facilities have been created, primarily to provide suitable space for the increased applications engineering activity.
New principals have been added, most notably Fuji, and the UK spares and service responsibility for Toyoda-Mitsui Seiki has been acquired to very good effect.
The long-term principal, Fanuc, has thrived during the year.
600 Centre also provides the UK location for the new Dalian Sales operation, supporting the Dalian range of machine tools which was launched at EMO 2007.
Developed as a result of an agreement with DMTG, the range - exclusive to 600 Group - is being marketed to aggressively increase the Group's presence in the machine tool industry world-wide, particularly within the value-for-money machine tool ranges.
* Lathes sales - all the 600 Group manufacturing companies have reported growth in sales and market penetration during the year, most achieving greater than 30% increase in sales.
600 Lathes, which manufactures the Colchester-Harrison branded lathes, has seen an increased demand for its lathes, primarily because of technology enhancements which enable multi-operation machining in one set up and fully automated parts load/unload and handling.
Currently, for instance, it is heavily involved in a number of projects tailoring the big 3m and 4m Alphas to meet the demands of special projects which customers have in hand, particularly for the booming oil industry.
In addition, there has been a substantial investment in research and development leading to some very interesting, and very important, developments in turning centre operation.
* Laser marking - Electrox is now the market leader for laser marking machines in the UK and is performing well elsewhere, particularly in Germany.
This is in part due to increased marketing effort but most significant factor in its substantial market penetration is its development of the proprietary EF Technology, which gives users extremely efficient laser marking but at a lower cost than has been typical and with far greater reliability.
Electrox EF Technology laser marking systems are still the only systems available which offer a 4 year warranty.
As the company has developed, it has established a commanding and far-reaching range of standard laser marking systems, offering a choice of laser sources in a range of different workstations in order to best suit an individual customer's requirement.
This has been extended to provide commercially realistic modified standard systems and entirely bespoke systems to accommodate virtually any customer requirement.
* Workholding - Pratt Burnerd International and Crawford Collets, 600 Group's two workholding companies, have performed well during the last twelve months.
The boom in the oil industry demand has greatly benefited Pratt Burnerd International, which has now added the manufacturing of large diameter chucks to its already extensive workholding portfolio.
Although the companies will continue to develop and manufacture the standard ranges, all of which are proven in the market, the emphasis will be on undertaking more bespoke work, producing special workholding systems for complex or difficult applications.
This is in line with the Group's overall focus on providing solutions to manufacturing problems rather than simply marketing high quality, standard products.
* Bearing manufacture - Gamet Bearings, which manufactures super high precision taper roller bearings at its factory in Colchester, is operating at full capacity despite employing the latest, most efficient manufacturing and production technology in its plant.
This is due to the recognition by most leading manufacturers of precision machines that Gamet bearings are the only ones to provide the exceptional accuracies required, giving an increased market penetration throughout the world, and is also due to the current upsurge in demand for machine tools.
Dick said: "We have had an extremely successful year and I anticipate that we will build on that success during the next twelve months".
"Each of our companies is now in a very strong position in its market, and is growing at a sustainable rate.
We have the MACH exhibition shortly, and we are expecting very, very strong results from that show.
We have three stands there, with both Electrox and Pratt Burnerd International/Crawford Collets operating stands in the relevant section of the show and a major stand being operated by 600 Centre to demonstrate our high, medium and lower technology applications engineering ability".
He continued: "We put a great deal of energy, thought and research into developing the new, three stranded business strategy and the ways in which we could implement it.
That is already paying off, with 600 Group companies - both distributors and manufacturers - clearly demonstrating significantly increased penetration of their market and a high acceptance of the machines and equipment which they sell.
Although this is partly due to the upturn in manufacturing, it is primarily due to the power of each of those companies.
That is sustainable growth and keeps us comfortably on target to maintain our position as a serious competitor on the world stage.".
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