Sodick Europe demonstration facility in Warwick, UK.
Japanese manufacturing leader, Sodick officially opened the doors to its new European headquarters last month, welcoming 170 guests to the 45,000 square foot UK site which will serve as a hub for customers across Europe. Last week, the company invited trade press to take a tour of the new Warwick facility which, in collaboration with a local architect, has been 10 months in the making.
Welcoming guests, Peter Capp, CEO Sodick Europe recalled an early meeting with the company’s President, fondly known as ‘Big F’, to discuss construction plans for the building. His immediate response? Go bigger.
Go big, they did. Sodick has acquired 3 acres of land at the site to allow for a showroom, training facilities, spare parts warehouse, and plenty of room - another 10,000 sq. ft. to be exact - for future expansion.
If you were not already aware of the EDM leader’s Japanese heritage, its origins provide the focal point for much of the facility’s design including images of cherry blossoms, wall art depicting Tokyo’s Shibuya Crossing, and a traditional Japanese garden complete with a Cherry Tree planted by Kenichi Furukawa, President of Sodick and son of EDM pioneer and Sodick founder, Toshihiko Furukawa, during the opening ceremony.
The main showroom has been designed to give customers the chance to see machines up and running for demonstrations and training. It’s flagship EDM equipment is powered up next to plastic injection moulding, milling and additive manufacturing technologies in a temperature-controlled environment.
Sodick’s GL series injection moulding machines based on its V-LINE technology provided some impressive examples of incredibly detailed, miniature parts, demonstrating the precision and control its unique moulding technology can offer. Its additive manufacturing technology, a hybrid machine named the OPM Series, offers metal 3D printing and high-speed milling in a single machine. While Sodick says AM is not as widespread as its other manufacturing systems, the company has found a sweet spot adopting the technology in-house to create complex metal moulds for its plastic injection moulding processes.
Sodick OPM250L hybrid manufacturing system.
Establishing its European HQ in the UK at a time of such political uncertainty may seem like a bold choice but Capp explained that “the UK is the best place for Sodick to be” stating that the UK holds the right skills to carry out the company’s investment. The facility currently employs 50 staff across sales and support, a number which Sodick intends to double in the near future.
Brexit doesn’t appear to be causing too much concern for Sodick. Its central warehouse, which carries 10-13 million Euro in stock, is situated in Holland, which means realistically the only impact the UK's departure from the EU will have on its European operations will be on those machines coming into the UK, as Capp explained. While that doesn't sound like the best news for UK manufacturers, Capp explained that the UK is a good market for aerospace, medical, tool making and mould making customers, and like many UK businesses, Sodick has already ordered more stock into the UK to protect those customers in the case of a no deal result. In addition, the majority of machines coming into the EU are manufactured in Thailand and for consumables, the UK facility houses approximately 250,000 GBP worth of parts at any given time.
The ability to overcome challenges like this is all in Sodick's name, which guests were told can be translated to: create (Sozo - SO), implement (Jikkou - DI) and overcome difficulties (CurouKokufuku - CK).
This facility represents a huge 7 million GBP investment in the UK by the company. To this date, Sodick has manufactured and delivered over 60,000 EDM systems worldwide, and the company has equally grand ambitions for this site which includes the provision of support for 17 countries including Russia, Germany, Turkey, Spain, to name a few, and the manufacture and assembly of machine tools.
