While the total number of visitors to the
Hurco stand at
MACH 2024 last month was down on the previous show two years ago, the company has reported that the quality of enquiries for new machines and the volume of business concluded more than made up for the shortfall.
Managing director David Waghorn said: “We have become used to seeing visitors at the show increase over the last couple of decades and 2022 was post-pandemic, so people were simply glad to get out! Although we welcomed fewer people onto our stand this time, it was clear that those who did visit had been planning and budgeting carefully. The end result was a more successful show for us than two years ago.”
Hurco opted to take a 300m
2 stand at this year’s exhibition — it largest-ever, returning to the position it formerly occupied in Hall 6, nearest to people arriving from Birmingham International Station. The extra space offered the opportunity to run 11 Hurco machines as well as a Roeders machining centre throughout the duration of the show — all cutting metal.
This year’s particular focus was on five-axis and automation — a Hurco ProCobot Profeeder assisted production of parts on a VM20i three-axis vertical machining centre (VMC) and an Erowa Robot Compact 80 was feeding a VMX30Ui trunnion-type five-axis machine.
The sheer variety of five-axis Hurco VMC options on show at
MACH 2024 was remarked upon by many visitors. They ranged from the highly versatile VMX42SRTi with direct drives in the B and C axes, to the cantilever-design VC500i offering easy access for large components, to the economical C-frame VMX30Ui, and on to the simple addition of a Kitagawa or Nikken rotary-tilt table to a conventional three-axis machine. The variety of configurations allows an optimal solution to be chosen to suit the parts to be cut.
Turning centres, the fastest-growing category in the Hurco portfolio, took centre stage. They were represented by a two-axis TM6i, a three-axis TM8Mi and a multi-axis TMX10MYSi with Y-axis, sub-spindle and a servo-turret with 12 driven tool stations. The latter range of models allows for a greater number of more complex operations, including gear hobbing and polygon turning, to be performed on a turned part in a single handling.
Mr Waghorn concluded: “The final outcome from a
MACH show is always difficult to assess. Machine tool technology increases in value year-on-year, which means people tend to consider investments ever more carefully, so it can be as much as two years later that an enquiry results in a sale. However, based on orders in excess of £2 million taken on our stand, plus more than 200 quotations resulting from the show, Hurco will certainly be returning with a similar presence in 2026.”