Within a couple of hours of Bushey-based Citizen Machinery UK Ltd opening the doors for its Technology Days Open House, three directors of precision-engineering sub-contractor Adams Engineering (Ilkeston) Ltd ordered a Citizen Cincom L32-VIII sliding-head turn-mill centre, to increase their company’s installed base of Citizen-supplied machines to five (www.citizenmachinery.co.uk).

Managing director Robert Roberts said: “We needed to increase capacity because one of our leading customers, which has a turnover in excess of £140 million, has acquired another business; and because we have been a long-term and reliable supplier, we are in line to significantly increase part production.”

The first day of the Citizen Open House was hailed as an outstanding success by deputy managing director Darren Wilkins, as his team chalked up orders worth well over £700,000 from the 75 customers that attended (this included machine orders from customers visiting from Scotland and Ireland).

Over the three days, more than 300 people attended the event, placing orders for 18 machines worth some £3.4 million; seven of these machines featured Citizen’s patented Low Frequency Vibration (LFV) technology.

Adams Engineering director Tracy Manners said: “It was 10 years ago that we installed our first Citizen — an A20-VI. We also have two A20-VIIs bought in 2012, and a fixed-head Miyano BNA-42S that we bought in 2014 so we could accommodate larger-diameter bar.”

Director Scott Burrows added: “We have grown on the back of Citizen installations. The machines give us reliability and consistency of production — plus support and service is available whenever it is needed.

“We have the flexibility to produce a wide range of parts in batches between 200 and 20,000 and in most materials — including mild steel, stainless, brass, copper, aluminium bronze and plastics.”