Describing this year’s round of open days as the best ever, XYZ Machine Tools’ managing director, Nigel Atherton, says that 2011 is shaping up to be the company’s most successful year since its formation in 1984. Open day orders totalled 71 machines valued at £2.5 million, with visitor numbers showing a significant increase on last year.

A joint ‘open house’ event held at tooling distributor WNT (UK) Ltd’s Sheffield HQ set the scene with 11 firm orders for XYZ, while the unprecedented success of subsequent two-day events at XYZ’s Blackburn, Burlescombe, Waltham Abbey and Nuneaton showroom and demonstration centres has contributed further to expectations.

The partnership with WNT is just one of several initiatives that are impacting favourably on XYZ’s sales performance. “People are reluctant to travel too far, so WNT’s new demonstration area, which is equipped with five XYZ machines, is providing another local option for live machining demonstrations and off-site training,” says Nigel Atherton. “We have also re-structured our UK sales operation into smaller individual areas to enable our area sales managers to focus more clearly on their customers while also exploring new sales opportunities.

“The recruitment of Andrew Yeomans, Steve Bowers and David Wilkinson to the UK sales team, along with the return of Russell Bedford, is an additional resource that already is beginning to pay dividends. We have also appointed David Stockton as Educational Sales Manager to concentrate full-time on the specific requirements of the education and training sector, and we are still recruiting in response to what is an unprecedented demand for our CNC/manual and full-CNC machines.”

The service team has been expanded to provide an even better response on installations, commissioning and breakdowns, while Russell Wood has joined the Training and Applications team to provide additional support to the sales team. This emphasis on sales, service and support, according to Nigel Atherton, is a positive response to the current market.

Attracting attention at XYZ’s open house events was the innovative LPM machining system, the first XYZ ProtoTRAK-equipped machine to be fitted with an automatic tool change. The LPM does not require the operator to have G and M coding knowledge, and has several features designed specifically to speed setting-up in prototype and small batch production. Another development is the recent introduction of a 'Y' axis to the XYZ TC 320 LTY turning centre. Capable of travelling 50mm above and below centreline (100 mm total travel), the Y axis of this mill-turn machine makes easy work of components that would normally require separate milling and turning operations.

XYZ has also produced several short videos, all of which can be accessed via its website. There is an introduction to the new LPM machining system and explanations of the features and application of the ProtoTRAK control system fitted exclusively to the XYZ range of CNC/manual mills and lathes. With more than 7000 UK users, ProtoTRAK has been shown to double or treble an operator’s productivity in prototype and low volume production applications, and even more if complex components are involved.