Industrial Venture

Machine makers who create machine tools for the secondary wood markets should take heart in recent figures that reveal that their sector of the machine industry has shown some signs of improvement.

The Woodworking Machinery Industry Assn. (WMIA) and the Wood Machinery Manufacturers of America (WMMA), who both represent manufacturers and importers of solid wood machinery makers have both come out to say that the market is seeing signs of improvement.

“The information that the WMIA office has gathered from its members is that there has been a slight business improvement over the last [few] months or so, both in terms of inquiries about new machinery, as well as actual orders,” said Riccardo Azzoni, WMIA executive vice president. “This could be partly attributed to the usual year-end tax related activity, but it seems to go a bit further as some customer’s business has picked up and retooling has become a necessity.”

He also claims that there is a slightly stronger demand for panel processing equipment and machinery over solid wood machinery. There is also increased activity in the used machine tools market.

He concludes “The key for an overall improvement is obviously tied to the availability of loans and the housing market, which lately has shown some signs of improvement.”

Taiwan’s machine-tool industry is apparently set to continue its upward trajectory during the course of 2012 as industry projections estimate that more locally made machine tools than ever are likely to be shipped to China duty-free under the recent cross-Taiwan Strait ECFA (economic cooperation framework agreement) in place.

Further negotiations are also set to take place that may see even more machine tools being sold, should they be successful.

The duty reductions under the ECFA have enabled a number of different machine tools firms, including Awea Mechantronic Co., Roundtop Machinery Co., Goodway Machine Corp., Hiwin Technologies Corp., Kao Fong Machinery Co., Falcon Machine Tools Co., and Shieh Yih Machinery Industry Co, to achieve even more sales.

Statistics reveal that there are between 700 and 800 different types of machines produced in the country, with more than 100 now being eligible for duty-free shipping as part of the agreement.

Innovative Machine Specialists a machine company that specialises in developing a range of different CNC machines, has had its success placed firmly in the spotlight after undergoing an understated program in which it expanded its business and created more jobs.

Not the company has been named as the 2012 Firm of the Year by the Marshfield Area Chamber of Commerce & Industry, with co-owner and president Andy Martin commenting “We’re very appreciative of this honour. We can’t believe we made the list.”

Amongst a number of other services the company develops stainless steel and plastic parts that are used in a range of different machine tools and will now join a “hall of fame” of businesses in Marshfield after becoming the 17th recipient of the award.

The criteria that needs to be matched to attain the award include making an economic impact, investments in facilities and equipment, adding jobs and giving back through community service and charitable donations.

The chamber commented that “There were a number of good firms. But in our opinion, one company really stood out.”

A recent report has found that the total number of orders for machine tools in 2011 has risen by 35.5% in terms of value when compared to the previous year in Tokyo.

This equates to an overall revenue of 1.33 trillion yen and marks the second year in a row that there has been an increase in sales in the city. It is believed the rise can mainly be put down to to reconstruction demand in the wake of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in addition to flooding in Thailand.

Foreign demand grew 34.8 percent to 904.59 billion yen as well, marking it out as the highest demand on record since 1963.

Domestic demand rose 37.1 percent to 421.61 billion yen.

The Rajkot machine tools industry appears to have hit a bit a slow down as orders dropped by almost 30% recently. Businesses in the region are still receiving orders, however a number are becoming increasingly apprehensive about what the future will hold.

“So far we are quite safe and are witnessing stable businesses. But we have fear that slow down may soon affect the Rajkot machine tools industry. This is because compared to last year, we are getting almost 30 per cent less orders,” said Sailesh Kava, president, Machine Tools Manufacturers Association of Rajkot (MTMA).

The Rajkot machine tools industry saw 450 units sold and Kava continues ”But the way the frequency of orders is dipping, we may not cross the previous year’s mark, leave alone achieving this year’s target. However, there is lot to be done in infrastructure and if the government puts some more focus on it, the same may benefit us in near future.”

The Indian machine tools industry is remaining upbeat despite the economic slowdown, as no visible effect seems to have been made on the industry as orders remain largely as anticipated.

“We have not seen any impact of the slowdown on our industry as demand for our products remains buoyant and we have firm orders for the next six months from the manufacturing sector, which caters to the large domestic and export markets,” Indian Machine Tool Manufacturers’ Association (IMTMA) president Vikram Sirur told reporters when speaking about the machine tools industry.

Demand for machine tools has even grown during the period, leading some to criticise the market for an over-dependence on imported CNC machines and other tools.

“We have been an import-dependent country for machine tools for historical and other reasons, including late and limited entry of domestic players in the segment. The scenario is changing for better as our market share has increased to 33 percent in 2010-11 from 25 percent in 2009-10 and hope to reach 50 percent in 2016-17 by end of the 12th Five-Year Plan,” Sirur said.

Okuma America Corporation has announced that they have hired a new 5-axis Product Specialist who is intended to work specifically with the distributors and customers who utilise this form of machine tool.

Kyle Klaver arrives at the company with a 26 year history with machine tools, having most recently served as the served as the manufacturing manager for Roush Yates Racing Enterprises.

His technical background includes part processing and programming of 2D, 3D 4- and 5-axis milling work centers and 2- to 9-axis mill/turn work centres, however he has also worked with a variety of different CNC machine tools and runs training and technical seminars at trade shows and events.

He is a senior member of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers.

The engineering firm Holroyd Machine Tools have announced that they have set up a host of contracts to supply machine tools to China, with the apparent worth of the deals topping out at £3 million.

The machine tools group has been recruited to build two rotor grinding machines worth £2m by a company which makes air compressors and refrigeration equipment in addition to an order worth £1.2 million to supply machines to the manufacturing of railway car bodies.

Both orders are from customers based in Beijing.

The orders being placed for machine tools in the United States dropped by a startling 22.4% during the month of October, with only $463.32 million during the month from $606.56 million in September, according to AMT-The Association for Manufacturing Technology and AMTDA, the American Machine Tool Distributors’ Assn.

However the new figures also demonstrated a 20.3% improvement on those from October 2010, suggesting that the machine tools market is still growing when compared to previous years.

“Manufacturing technology orders through October have already surpassed the total value accumulated in 2007,”” AMT president Douglas Woods added.

He continued “The beginning of 2012 will be a little slow as tax incentives pulled some orders back into 2011, which will likely make 2012 growth softer,” Woods continued, echoing a messages delivered in November by two of Europe’s largest machine-tool builders’ trade groups. The German Machine Tool Builders’ Assn. (VDW) reported its members’ face slower growth than the strong demand recorded through much of this year; and CECIMO, the European Assn. of the Machine Tool Industries, said, “the dire outlook of the financial sector is now overshadowing the very positive outcome from EMO, the world’s premier machine tool exhibition. The uncertainty in the financial markets is spreading to the industrial sectors and might influence the growth rates in 2012.”

The custom woodwork and cabinetry firm Embassy Millwork, which was based in New York, have announced that they will be purchasing a host of new CNC machines as part of their move to the Netherlands.

The firm is being supported by a large loan from the Montgomery County Business Development Center to complete the move and purchase the machines. The company was formed back in 2006 after the merger of BR Woodworking and Embassy Millwork led to them trading under the name of Embassy Designs.

The loan supports acquisition of a SEM Bridge 5 computer numerically controlled machining system, which will be moved to the Dutch facility that the company are looking to move into.