All in order for Citizen

Twelve direct open house sales in October for CNC sliding head and fixed head turn/mill centres worth over £1.4 million makes a significant contribution to achieving the financial target of an order book worth £40 million for Citizen Machinery UK in 2014.

Machines from across the company's range, valued between £55,000 and £300,000 each brought added success to the celebration of its 40 years of Citizen machine tool sales in the British Isles.

Said managing director Geoff Bryant: “Such was the level of interest from the 176 visitors from 93 companies that our sales and applications team are now following up and facing excellent prospects of securing a 14 further machine tool deals from initial enquiries generated during our four day event.”

The celebratory event held at the Bushey, Watford, headquarters coincided with Citizen Miyano Machinery Co's announcement in Japan that the group is very close to selling its 100,000th machine before the close of the year. This milestone included machines drawn from right across the stable of Citizen, Miyano and Ocean Cincom product lines.

As Mr Bryant reflected, the consensus from most visitors to the open house – comprising around 70% subcontractors and 30% OEMs – was they were running almost flat out and seeking additional machining capacity.

“Distance seemed not to deter visitors with several flying in from Ireland and Scotland,” he stated. “Partner suppliers that took part covering material, tooling, coolant, software and various items of ancillary equipment that form key areas of the production scene were seen by visitors as important contributors to improving productivity on both new and existing machine tools.”

Machines sold spanned the Citizen, Miyano and Ocean Cincom range from the lower cost, entry level 12 to16 mm capacity Citizen B-Series CNC sliding head with 16 tools and a Y-axis to the top of the range Series 4, M32-VIII having up to 35mm bar capacity, 80 tools, 3Y- and a B-axis.

Meanwhile, from the fixed head Miyano range, the BNA-42C2 single spindle, eight tool turret to the ABX-64THY2 with 64mm bar size, twin spindle and triple Y-axis turret machine able to provide 36 stations, and the Ocean Cincom GN-3200W with four inch chuck, twin spindles and twin linear tool slides were sold or under further application discussions.

Also generating interest was the new production concept for bar or chucking work, the Citizen MC20. This three spindle flexible turning cell, with robotic blank part loading and kissing spindle component transfer technology, was seen by many as an important influence to future flexible production methods.

Citizen Machinery UK
www.citizenmachinery.co.uk