MTA celebrates successful MACH

Soon after the last visitor had left MACH 2012 on the Friday evening of 20 April, the Manufacturing Technologies Association — organisers of the event held at the NEC, Birmingham — was able to confirm that well over 20,000 people had visited the show. That number included some 2,500 young people, many of whom were shown around the exhibition by apprentices from MTA member companies. MTA president Simon Pollard says: “MACH is Britain’s biggest exhibition of manufacturing technology, and it lies at the heart of an incredible range of UK supply chains. The event is vital, as it allows people to come together, make contacts, do business and show off the world-class technologies and applications that make our industry so dynamic.

Carl Windram, managing director of Leicester-based Central Grinding Services, said he had such a huge number of enquiries at the show that the company is looking to buy another machine to fulfill the potential orders. Nick Frampton, managing director of Mills CNC — the exclusive distributor of Doosan machine tools into the UK and Ireland — says: “We had a very positive MACH show. By the close of play on the last day, we had sold 14 machines valued at more than £1.8 million from the stand — up 50% on the sales we achieved at the last MACH show. Moreover, a significant percentage of these orders came from new customers.”

Martin Doyle, UK sales manager at Hardinge Machine Tools Ltd, said that the company even took a number of orders on the first day. One of these was from Gordon Turner, chairman and founder of Chorley-based Alan Gordon Engineering, which ordered a Quaser MF400C five-face machining centre — marketed in the UK under the Hardinge Bridgeport brand.

The first day of MACH also proved fruitful for Tornos UK, which sold a Tornos Gamma 20/6B sliding-head turning centre to Rutland-based Hi-Spec Precision Engineering Ltd. What is particularly interesting about this sale is the fact that company director and decision maker Darren Grainger had previously only seen footage of the machine on YouTube. Hi-Spec manufactures components for hydraulic valves and cylinders.