Mazak opens its 14th European technology center in Hungary

On May 11th this year Yamazaki Mazak opened its 14th technology center in Europe, which is located in Soskut, Hungary. The new technology center will provide enhanced before and after sales service and support from the company, in view of the growing Central European market.

The official grand opening was attended by Dr Aradski, secretary of state for energy affairs, Ferenz Konig, mayor of Soskut, Mr Takashi Yamazaki - the vice president of Yamazaki Mazak Corporation, Mazak Europe and Mazak Japan employees, agents, as well as guests from partner companies and customers. Petya Naydenova, one of the most experienced and longterm specialists at TLL Media, represented our team at the opening ceremony.

Mazak’s Soskut Technology Center is located on the outskirts of Budapest and is an addition to the company’s existing central European centers in Prague, the Czech Republic, and in Katowice in Poland, that were opened in 2012.

"Since we first established Yamazaki Mazak Central Europe in 2004 and opened our office in Budapest, our team have worked hard to build up their rich knowledge about our customers and to offer in-depth support and productivity far beyond simply selling machines. This new Technology Center in Hungary now gives us the facilities for our application and service engineers to do even more to support our customers in the region and enhance our reputation," said the vice president of Yamazaki Mazak Corporation Mr Takashi Yamazaki, who officially opened the building.

The new facility has a total floor area of 1,780 sqm., a 50-seat learning auditorium, classroom facilities, meeting rooms and offices, as well as a demonstration area with 10 of the latest Mazak machine tools, including the latest INTEGREX and VARIAXIS multi-tasking machines, QUICK TURN turning centers, vertical and horizontal machining centers, laser processing machines and Mazak’s SMOOTH Technology.

Nevertheless, according to Mazak the technology center is not simply a traditional showroom where customers are simply able to see machine demonstrations. The state-of-the-art center is also the place for before and after sales service, support to customers in the area, consultations for improving productivity and advanced application support and training.

The new training academy the corporation is introducing will provide training courses for machine operators and programmers, advice on how to decide the right cutting strategy, and how to program using Mazatrol and Smooth Technology. The facility also benefits from its striking architectural design and cutting edge construction methods, including environmentally friendly and energy efficient features.

The amount of production bases of major international firms, particularly within the automotive, railroad and energy industries that are located in Hungary continues to expand under the government’s investment promotion. This technology center is conveniently located close to the major Hungarian M7 highway, so it will operate as a strategic base to support customers not only within the Hungarian domestic market, but additionally to neighboring countries such as  Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia.

"Our new Technology Center Hungary is a clear demonstration of the Yamazaki Mazak philosophy of supporting customers locally. The Central European market for machine tools is developing rapidly, both at an OEM and subcontract engineering level, and this new Technology Center will ensure that we continue to offer our customers the highest levels of support throughout the operational life of their machines.

Via the new Training Academy we are extending the range of training courses we offer and I would encourage all manufacturing engineers to visit the new Technology Center Hungary to find out more about the latest innovations," commented Dr Damien Cleugh, General Manager of Yamazaki Mazak Central Europe.

At the end of April this year Mazak opened its seventh technology center in Japan, and in May a new Shanghai Technology Center as well National Service Center was opened in China. Another two investments in Japan are underway for the company, shared Takashi Yamazaki during his opening speech. The company is planning to convert its Oguchi Cyber factory into a Mazak "i-smart" factory to bring the tremendous benefits of the Internet of Things (IoT).

A month ago, Mazak announced another plan to open a new factory at Inabe City, about 230 miles southwest of Tokyo in Mie Prefecture, Japan. The Inabe City plant will be a greenfield version of Mazak’s iSMART Factory concept, which uses advanced manufacturing cells and production systems to maximize productivity and flexibility, and "free-flow data sharing" with machine and process control monitoring.

The goal is to optimize manufacturing by coordinating all available technology, information, and resources, in line with the theories projected as the industrial Internet of Things (IoT). The new plant will be worth an investment of $200 million and will open in 2018, providing another new iSMART Factory before the celebration of the company’s 100-year anniversary in 2019.