LATHES OF THE HIGHEST QUALITY FAT (Fabryka Automatów Tokarskich) SA, part the of Belgian HACO Group, is a well-known Polish manufacturer of specialist, mainly numerically controlled, custom-made lathes, exported to clients around the world. It is the only company in the Group which produces lathes, manufacturing around 150 machines every year. Piotr Sadowski reports.
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uality has always been the top priority for FAT SA, which has nearly 70 years of manufacturing tradition and since its inception has produced more than 60,000 lathes. “While we cannot compete on price with Far Eastern producers, we certainly win over clients by the strength of our brand and the absolute guarantee of providing the best quality and customer service following the purchase,” explains Ireneusz Ostrowski, director of sales and marketing at the company. “We work together with clients to deliver customised medium to large size lathes, today mostly numerically controlled. For example, we recently organised a meeting with our dealers to introduce one of our latest products, the FTM 700 5-axis CNC turn-mill centre. All of our machines are manufactured according to detailed custom102 Industry Europe
ers’ orders. Our advantage lies in non-serial production and the capability to adjust to individual needs of clients.”
Growth and investment despite the recession Since 1998, FAT has been a member of the Belgian HACO Group, which is an important European manufacturer of sheet metal working machinery (press brakes, guillotine shears, punching machines and laser cutting machines etc). Thanks to the cooperation with HACO, FAT has developed very quickly and has focused on the production of both conventional and CNC controlled flat bed CNC lathes. The company gained new investments and increased production of lathes. New machine shop was built; production of modern teach-in lathes using state-of-the-
art technology were developed as well as production of fabricating machinery. FAT also started to realise special projects for individual orders. A new sales strategy through dealer network was implanted. The economic slowdown certainly affected the operations of FAT SA: it had to undertake vital cost restructuring and shed around 100 jobs. Nevertheless, the company managed to cope with the difficulties and for the last two years it has been undergoing stabilisation and has begun hiring again. “We now employ around 220 staff. It is, however, important to note that FAT SA is focusing on manufacturing increasingly larger, more innovative and complicated lathes. Some lathes, such as those in the TUR MN series, have an impressive turning length up to 16,000mm and turning diameter up to 1550mm.
