Turning centres machines are now becoming a machining centre as well as a lathe and more users are purchasing this type of machine to make complex parts in one set-up.

Steeped in a tradition of high specification machine tool sales and distribution, Macro CNC of Brierley Hill in the West Midlands, UK, has sold the renowned Japanese Miyano turning centres for over 25 years. In this time, the manufacturing industry has changed drastically and it has required machine tool development to do likewise. Macro CNC has also changed.

* Changes at Macro CNC - to meet the evolving market needs, Macro CNC has also undergone change.

Acquired by Miyano in 2001, the now Macro CNC general manager John Stretton commented: 'One of the aims for 2006 was to enforce the Miyano name upon the UK marketplace and this will continue into 2007.

However, not only has the company changed but so has the marketplace.' The fast pace of change has also noted Miyano forming an equity and business alliance with Citizen Machinery Co, a division of Citizen Watch Co in recent weeks.

This alliance sees Citizen acquiring a 29.9% stake in Miyano Machinery.

However, concentrating on the product range Stretton continued: 'More customers are making extremely intricate components.

However, customers also want more flexibility to coincide with their complexity.

The goal is all about making complex parts, which is changing the development of the turning centre.

Our machines are now becoming a machining centre as well as a lathe.

More customers are now purchasing the Miyano ABX range of machines.

This is because companies want to make complex parts in one set-up.' * Evolving market needs - with the market demands requiring the ability to produce a wide variety of complex parts with the minimum of changeover times, the Miyano ABX range is increasingly in demand.

'The goal of our customers is to leave these machines set-up.

Manufacturers now want to leave all tools set, so the machine setter is only changing the bar size, putting in the program and hitting the start button.

This philosophy drastically reduces set-up and machine downtimes, increases productivity and allows the part to be produced in one operation.

The customer now wants to make lower batch sizes and then change over to another part very quickly,' continued Stretton.

Customers are looking for flexibility as well as savings on the cycle times and meeting all these demands has seen the machines evolve.

Unmanned running is increasingly in demand and to meet this, tool monitoring is now standard, drill and part off breakages are also monitored to allow the machines to run unmanned.

The company recently supplied a machine with 22 driven tools that spends 50% of its time conducting prismatic machining operations.

'For us as a company, this has changed the business drastically in the course of 2006; the size of the projects has undoubtedly increased.

This change of project size has increased our applications work.

The ABX range of machines from 51mm to 64mm diameter is allowing us to do this - we can now mount 72 tools with 36 of them being driven.' Stretton continued: 'With this complexity we now spend more time with customers, so our support and applications philosophies have changed, we now work more closely with tooling and chuck suppliers and are often working with their OEM specialists.' However, a large slice of the company's success stems from the exceptionally popular Miyano BNJ series of machines.

The BNJ is still the biggest seller with almost 40% of all Miyano UK sales.

'It is a very good value machine that will fit with customers making difficult components below 42mm diameter, yet wanting more power than what is available with a sliding head machines.' Our new 8-axis two turret BNE series of machine and the BND-51SY have both undergone recent developments to meet the evolving needs of the end user.

'As a market leader and an innovator Miyano will be further developing current models as well as launching new products throughout 2007.

Our customers are very pleased with the current range of Miyano options available and with further product launches expected, we are optimistic about our potential for 2007,' concluded Stretton.