In April 2013, precision engineering company Columbia Precision installed its first vertical turning lathe (VTL), a Mazak Megaturn Nexus 900M, as part of a £2 million investment in new plant and software.
It increased to 1m the maximum diameter of component that can be accommodated on a lathe at the subcontractor’s factory in Aston, Birmingham. The previous maximum was 400mm, although 630mm can be turned on the table of a Matsuura MAM72 six-pallet machining centre…
Comment: The UK is closer to deindustrialisation than reindustrialisation
"..have been years in the making" and are embedded in the actors - thus making it difficult for UK industry to move on and develop and apply...