In recent years, in order to stop China's development, the United States has repeatedly sanctioned China's high-tech enterprises. According to the news from the foreign media at the end of April, the U.S. demanded that Switzerland not be allowed to export high-precision machine tools to China, on the grounds that these machine tools may be used by China in the production line of the J-20 fighter jet, thus affecting the national security of the United States.
Obviously, even if the US asks Switzerland to stop supplying machine tools to China, it will not affect the scale of production of the existing J-20 fighter jet, because, as a kind of national weapon, China is bound to do a good job in the Swiss equipment cut off the supply of other equipment for the replacement of the production program.
Friends familiar with machine tools know that Swiss machine tools actually represent the advanced manufacturing level in Europe and even in the world, this small country with a population of more than 8.5 million people has dozens of the world's top machine tool companies, 21 of the world's top 500 companies (2019 data), the output value occupies close to 5% of the global scale, and the export of machine tools is ranked sixth in the world.
And such a set of near-perfect data, thanks to the Swiss rigorous and serious "craftsmanship", there is a dedication to craftsmanship excellence, many Swiss machine tool companies are standing invisible champion. Such as Switzerland has GF AgieCharmilles, mold and high-end parts industry will be very familiar with, as well as five-axis linkage in the field of leading, high-speed cutting leader Mikron, and other Swiss precision machine, Baomei, Schaublin, Willem C. Makodell, AFFOLTER, Tornos and other more than 10 machine tool companies.
Here is a look at these machine tool companies (in no particular order) with Mechanical Knowledge:
The two divisions of the company, Mikron Automation and Mikron Machining, are located in Switzerland (Boudry and Arnoux), and have production plants in Germany, Singapore, China and the United States.
Founded in 1861 and headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, GF AgieCharmilles is a world-renowned system supplier to the tool and die making industry.
The products include: CNC EDM machine tools (EDM); CNC wire EDM machine tools (WEDM); high-speed machining centers (HSM) to the corresponding machine tool accessories and automation equipment, and its products are famous for high precision and high stability in the world. At this stage, both EDMs and high-speed milling machines play a key role in mold and die making, metal/plastic component production, and direct machining of complex precision parts, and GF AgieCharmilles' EDM products have a firm grip on the global market for high-end EDMs. The Group is the strongest producer of EDM machines in the world today.
Starrag is a global technology leader in the manufacture of high-precision machine tools for milling, turning, boring, and grinding of metal, composite, and ceramic workpieces. Starrag currently owns the brands Berthiez, Bumotec, D?rries, Droop+Rein, Ecospeed, Heckert, Scharmann, SIP, Starrag and TTL.
As high-end CNC machining equipment, Starrag STC series 5-axis linkage blade machining centers are characterized by high automation, high machining efficiency, high machining accuracy, etc. They are mainly used for machining and manufacturing of blades, which are the core components of steam turbines, aero-engines, blowers, axial compressors and other equipment.
STC machining center adopts five-axis linkage mode, which can carry out five-face machining from any angle, realizing high-efficiency machining of aluminum, steel, iron and other difficult-to-machine composite materials, and meeting the requirements of final precision. Starrag machining centers belong to the first tier of vertical machining center brands in the world.
Baume & Mercier was founded in the 1960s and is headquartered in the town of Saarland, between Bern and Geneva in southwestern Switzerland, with 130 employees. The company has been committed to the research, development and manufacture of small precision CNC machining equipment, focusing on providing solutions for the processing of small precision and complex parts, and its products are widely used in the watch industry, medical equipment, automotive parts manufacturing and light industry, but also in the aerospace, weapons, ships and other defense industries have a number of stable customer base. Baomei vertical machining centers belong to the first echelon of vertical machining center brands in the world.
Switzerland Willemin-Macodel SA (Willemin-Macodel SA) is located in Delemont, Switzerland, since 1974, has been committed to advanced machining centers, milling and turning machining centers, turning centers in the development and manufacture, especially five-axis CNC linkage processing of complex high-precision parts as a specialty.
Its main products include precision 5-axis machining centers, mill-turn machining centers and parallel machines. The industry applications are mainly watch, medical, aviation / aerospace, jewelry, molds and micro-precision parts processing. Among them, the 701S machining center for precision watch movement processing has been launched, with 80,000 RPM spindle and 2 micron repeatable positioning accuracy, which makes the 701S become the first choice of machining equipment for the world's high-end watch movement processing.
Precitrame Machines SA has been developing state-of-the-art automated production equipment since 1987. The company's main business areas are rotary transfer machines and finishing machines.
07. Schaublin Machines SA
Schaublin Machines SA was founded in 1915 in Bevilard, Switzerland, and manufactures precision lathes, milling machines, and machining centers. 2012 saw the launch of the fully temperature-controlled Precision Turning Center 136/137-CNC, which represents Schaublin's level of precision lathe manufacturing. precision lathe manufacturing level.
Tornos was founded in 1914 and has been headquartered in Moutier, Switzerland for over 100 years. Today Tornos manufactures CNC Swiss (sliding headstock) lathes, CNC multi-axis lathes and higher precision machining centers for the production of complex parts, providing unique solutions to specialized market segments, particularly in the automotive, medical and dental, micromechanical and electronics industries.
Founded in 1919, Affolter Technologies SA develops, produces, and sells electronic and mechanical components for a wide range of machines and machine tools for the watch manufacturing industry at the micromechanical level. Its main products are CNC controls and gear machining centers, which are much more than just a hobbing machine, using multi-axis simultaneous interpolation technology, and which can be used in a variety of versions to provide standard and customized complete solutions for users in the watchmaking industry, the aerospace industry, the gear reducer, the micro-mechanical industry, and the medical device industry.
The history of the Swiss company Les Hall can be traced back to more than 200 years ago (founded in 1788), is Europe's oldest machine tool manufacturer, Les Hall's worm gear grinding machine, according to the performance, efficiency, automation, control mode points on the NZA, OZA, AZA, A-ZO, ZB, SZA, SZ and so on. Series, such as RZ, 300E, RZ301S type of new machine tools using electric drive, suitable for multi-species, small and medium batch flexible production, processing accuracy up to 3-4 level, in the world in a leading position.
Switzerland ERNST-GROB company is the world famous automotive clutch hub punching cold forming equipment and automated production line provider, with the world's only patent. At the same time, Ernst Grob is also a famous supplier of cold extrusion machines for automotive splines. With the world's only patented process for cold forming of splines, the spline cold forming process is performed in a non-cutting manner.
ERNST-GROB offers a modern automated cold forming line for clutch hub punching, from cold extrusion to deburring and finishing to punching, including automatic loading and unloading and material handling, which allows for unattended modernization and labor savings.
Studer is a Swiss company located in Thun, Switzerland, founded in 1912 by Mr. Fritz Studer. The company's history is as follows:
Studer is the most representative Swiss manufacturer of cylindrical grinding machines, of which the CNC production universal cylindrical grinding machine Studer S22, is able to realize the individual grinding solution of the production platform, S22 technical specifications: the maximum grinding length of 800 mm, the height of the center of 175/255 mm, the diameter of the grinding wheel up to 610 millimeters.
For more than 60 years, ESCO has been developing and manufacturing cam and numerically controlled automatic lathes for small-diameter workpieces from 0.3 to 8 mm, also called centering machines, also known as ESCO longitudinal lathes, ESCO centering lathes, ESCO automatic lathes, or more formally ESCO centering machines or automatic lathes.
After reading the above 13 Swiss machine tool introduction, although our high-end machine tools are not as good as the West, but we are also a large machine tool manufacturing country, and more importantly, a large consumer of machine tools, the previous big and not strong does not represent the future .
In fact, whether it is a chip or a high-precision machine tool, if part of our business is still adhering to the " make as well as buy, buy as well as rent " idea, then it will only end up being eliminated by the times. China as a global manufacturing power, but also the world's most complete industrial categories of countries, we have developed to a certain extent, we must be to the various fields of high-end equipment, so as not to be the Western countries neck.