Hurco total flexible 5-axis machine takes off in Thailand

Wai Yip Lee, General Manager at Hurco (South East Asia) Pte Ltd, Jaturaporn Singha, Sales Manager of Thaimach Sales & Services Co. Ltd

Thailand is more than a favourite tourist destination. It is one of the world’s leaders in automotive manufacturing industry. This year at Thai METALEX, Hurco has brought its VMX42SRTi total flexible 5 axis machining center.

International Metalworking News for Asia spoke to Wai Yip Lee, General Manager of Hurco (S.E. Asia) Pte Ltd. “Based on the inquiry levels that we are receiving on 5-axis machines this year, I can say that this is a perfect timing for us to be presenting our VMX42SRTi total flexible 5 axis machining center at Thai market.”

“Pricing wise it’s a bit higher than the basic 5-axis machine. But we see that in terms of the machine specification and customer application especially in the mould & die section, they are embracing the 5-axis technology to improve service finish, reduce the cycle time, and to cut away the secondary process for mould & die jobs. The 5-axis machining center is perfect for them,” he added.  

While the past two years can be considered tough for Thailand’s automotive industry because of several negative factors, 2018 promises an interesting mix of technological innovations.

Wai Yip comments, “We see some recovery for 2018 in the automotive sector. I think it would be a better year for us. We will be focusing more on the mid-range and the high-range machining centers, especially more on the 4-axis, and 3- to 5-axis range. We do see that competition coming from places like Vietnam, Indonesia, Thai manufacturers are starting to look at improving their productivity, reducing set-up time for their existing parts. And also to take on more challenging machining jobs that require very precise machines and at the same time more access to approach a top geometry. So we think that 5-axis will have a lot of potential for growth that is precisely the reason why we have this machine at the show.”

When asked if Hurco’s 5-axis machining center is Industry 4.0 ready, Wai Yip explains “At Hurco, we don’t just build machining centers. We have our own controllers. Industry 4.0 is what everybody is talking about. As a control builder as well, our controls is Window space, so in terms of extracting data and linking up online system to manage workflow (ERP system, manufacturing workflow system itself), there are capabilities that are built within the control to allow that. In advanced markets like America and Germany, we are really working with different partners on getting the critical information from the machine to the system itself so that it can be incorporated to the whole Industry 4.0 plan.”

He added, “On a smaller scale, customers are looking at Industry 4.0 on a big scale but on a smaller scale there are capabilities that are built within the controller that allows the customer to extract data like spindle hours, spindle utilization, machine utilization and stuff like that. And all that are being presented in a graphical format. Customers can just log in to our own Hurco Extended Shop Floor Platform, which is an option, and they could just look at how the machine is moving. If a customer has for example three Hurco machines in different locations, even in three different countries, they can know the productivity of individual machine and individual departments by just simple click and by looking at the computer screen itself.”

Lear more about Hurco’s VMX42SRTi total flexible 5 axis machining center including live demonstration at METALEX 2017.