At EMO 2015 in Milan in early October, Haas Automation chose to highlight the many, productivity-enhancing innovations. Visitors to the Haas Automation booth were able to join a multi-stop tour of the company’s CNC vertical machining centres, turning centres and 5-axis machines, to see and learn first-hand the difference made by Haas innovations in software and control, automation, part and tool cooling, probing and setting-up, live tooling and high-speed machining.

“This was a fantastic event for Haas,” says Mr Jens Thing, managing director of Haas Automation Europe. “It was our biggest trade show investment to date and it yielded far greater than expected returns.” Mr Thing points out that this dramatic result is a clear indication that the company’s collaboration with Milan-based machine tool group Celada, operating the official Haas Factory Outlet (HFO) for Italy, also has the potential to exceed expectations.

“We joined forces with Celada a little over two years ago,” he says. “In that short time, the company and its people have invested significant capital and enormous energy in creating what will undoubtedly prove to be one of the best HFOs in the world.

“It’s still relatively early days, so the results at Milan just go to show how committed the Haas and Celada teams both are, and how well we work together. I’d like to thank everyone who contributed on our booth at EMO – we had operators and sales engineers from all over Europe, but my biggest thanks go to the Haas Automation team and the Celada team. ”

During the show, journalists and Haas customers had the opportunity to meet Mr Bob Murray, general manager of Haas Automation Inc., who was visiting from the company’s factory in Southern California. As always, Mr Murray shared plans for future Haas products, and his thoughts about opportunities and challenges in Europe and the rest of the world.

“We never stop innovating and designing new machines,” he said. “That’s really one of the keys to our continued success. We have a new CNC currently in development – a next-generation, more powerful control that will build on the current system and still be very familiar to Haas customers around the world.”

There are also new versions of the UMC750 currently in development. “This machine has proved to be very popular in Europe,” says Mr. Murray, “so we plan to build it in different configurations. Also, we have CNC gantry machines nearing launch and, of course, we already have available the ST-15 and ST-35 CNC tuning centres, which offer robust, big-bore capability and more powerful spindles, in machines with smaller footprints. We find more and more that our customers need capable machines with generous travels but small physical dimensions.”

As for challenges in the European and global economies, Mr Murray openly discusses Haas’ strategies for maintaining growth. “We have great potential for increasing our market share,” he says, “especially amongst the small to medium, privately owned machine shops. We have a large range of CNC machine tools, all of which are built in volume, which means we can supply existing and new customers with exactly the capabilities they need at the right price and with excellent back up and support from the HFO network.” All Haas prices – machines and spares, are available on-line, so customers know exactly what they can expect to pay.

“As our customers grow, we can continue to supply the reliable, productive machines they need. It doesn’t matter where a customer is based, we can support them, help them do business and, of course, make money.” It’s a strategy that has worked very well in the USA, where in some market niches, Haas enjoys 50% market share.

“These are great results at EMO 2015 in Italy,” concludes Mr Murray. “It goes to show, customers around the world all want the same things, wherever they are: high levels of service and support, and reliable products. Italian companies are very demanding and I’m happy to say, our machines and our service make sense to them.”