Seco Tools (UK) Ltd (
www.secotools.com) has reported that its two-day ‘Inspiration through Innovation’ event — held last month at the company’s Technology Centre in Alcester — was a huge success, with over 750 visitors.
Although keeping with the key principles of collaboration, knowledge-sharing and partnership, the 2018 event had a different format and structure, with an increase in the total number of machining demonstrations, the addition of a best-practice tutorial programme (running alongside the event’s seminar programme) and a new Technical Partner Exhibitor Zone.
Richard Jelfs, Seco Tools UK’s managing director, said: “When you have an established and popular event, there is a natural inclination not to change its structure or content.
“However, from feedback gained at last year’s event — combined with our own commitment to continuous improvement — we decided to change the focus and put machining right at the heart of the event.”
There were 16 machining demonstrations, each focused on an actual (or representative) customer part. Moreover, each demonstration involved a number of technical partners working together to develop the machining process.
The technical partners included machine tool builders and CAD/CAM providers, as well as companies involved with work-holding, cutting fluids and metrology. Seco provided the cutting tools for all 16 demonstrations.
Seco’s marketing, products and services manager, Mike Fleming, said: “In addition to the machine tools we already have at our Technology Centre, a number of machine tool builders — including Grob, Mills CNC, Heller, Matsuura, Mazak, Romi, and Fanuc — also brought machines that were involved in challenging demonstrations.
The specific parts machined at the event included high-precision and complex aerospace, automotive and medical components.
“Our objective with ‘Inspiration through Innovation’ has always been to create an inspiring and practical event, which is truly customer-focused and demonstrates that significant improvements in productivity, quality and performance can be best achieved through collaboration and by sharing best practice. We are already planning what we are going to do in 2019.”