Gurutzpe is a leading company in large horizontal CNC lathes. Since it began manufacturing its conventional model M1 in 1957 to date, with the last-generation CNC lathes, Gurutzpe has sold more than 5,000 machines worldwide. For more than half a century, it’s known how to adapt to the circumstances and demands of the times, which makes it one of the most prestigious horizontal CNC lathe manufacturer in the world.
Sales manager Oscar Anitua describes the reasons why Gurutzpe has chosen Fagor Automation CNC’s for its products.
With such a wide range of horizontal lathes, why have you chosen Fagor Automation CNC’s for your machines? How long have you been working with them?
There are several strong reasons for that: their reliability and ease of operation, or their conversational programming, which is great for turning and threading operations, to mention a couple of their strengths. All this makes programming very easy, getting operators familiarized very quickly and making them lose their fear of using CNC’s. In our case, since we do not machine large series of parts due to their size, their operation is easy and reliable.
The horizontal CNC lathes manufactured by Gurutzpe are aimed for a lot of sectors with very different needs and demands, such as railways, oil, naval, wind energy or aerospace, to mention a few. How do Fagor Automation CNC’s perform in these sectors? Do they deliver tailored solutions?
Yes. They basically adapt to every customer’s needs. Even when some have demanded for very specific solutions, we have had a very positive response from Fagor, and we have worked together to meet these particular needs.
Even some multinational companies that were used to working with other CNC’s, after seeing the tests, chose Fagor. It is true that it is the customer who decides, and quite often we have little chance to suggest a CNC brand, but sometimes we do so, to great results.
Which characteristics would you point out of the whole CNC line by Fagor Automation: reliability, power, ease of operation?
It’s clear that all these characteristics are important but, from my experience, I would highlight ease of operation.
What’s your opinion on the service offered by Fagor Automation?
My opinion is really good, also based on our experience in countries like Germany, UK, India and others.
Besides, when faced with malfunctioning, we have always had a very positive response in terms of warranty support, equipment replacement, etc.
Gurutzpe has a well-consolidated history worldwide. What do you think will be the horizontal CNC lathe market demands in the short-to-medium term?
As I see it, there is a growing demand for larger machines with greater weight and distance between center points, all this together with extreme precision and reliability. They also demand multi-process machines; in other words, lathes that are capable of turning, boring and grinding.
That’s where the future is. And a company our size must meet the needs of large multinational companies. Our goal is to offer tailored solutions based on a standard structure while, at the same time, being capable of solving specific machining problems. That’s why we work with Fagor Automation.
I think that the 2-axis machine market is getting more and more complicated due to the quality-price ratio on one hand, and to the pressure from really inexpensive Korean and Taiwanese machines on the other. But, at Gurutzpe, we believe that, although it is a difficult market, it is the source for the many relationships we keep with our customers. It is, in a way, the door to our relationship with them.
Anyway, we believe that we must combine relationships with multinational companies, those who buy during a crisis and out of it, and contacts with small customers, shops and family-run companies, where the customer-supplier relationship matters; in this case, purchasing may be a lot less frequent, but it turns out to be crucial for staying in business.