XYZ 40 years celebration.
When Nigel Atherton started XYZ in 1984 and imported and installed his first two XYZ machines in 1986, he could not have anticipated the achievements over the next 40 years. Machine sales rapidly grew to over 50 every month but, the major change was the introduction of the ProtoTRAK® control in 1993, bridging the gap between manual machines and CNC. It set the benchmark for easy programming with machine tool sales growing from £3 million to £15 million over a five-year period. The introduction of VMCs, Turning Centres and its TMC range with ProtoTRAK® and Siemens ShopMill and ShopTurn options saw turnover more than double again. Now the company has over 25,000 machines in use in the UK.
Each one has been commissioned and tested at XYZ’s Burlescombe headquarters and is supported by its team of 16 Service Engineers located strategically around the country and its 7 in-house specialists dedicated to particular areas of technical expertise, such as software and control queries. Between them they have over 300 years of experience in XYZ machinery.
As part of its commitment to customer support, XYZ Machine Tools holds £2 million of spare parts which equates to around 20,000 different parts at its Head Office enabling it to supply the majority of spare parts off the shelf for both new and legacy machines achieving next day delivery for UK orders placed before 3pm.
Nigel Atherton Managing Director.
Around the country, XYZ Machine Tools has six showrooms and/or training centres. These are in Burlescombe, Slough, Nuneaton, Huddersfield, Livingston and Sheffield. A further five applications engineers work with the sales team to provide machine demonstrations and training either at one of these centres or on the customer’s site. With these regional facilities, customers from around the country can benefit from local training, support and technical assistance wherever they are located.
Managing Director Nigel Atherton says,
“Right from the start, when I was selling, installing and supporting the machines myself, the key factor for success was the provision of first-class customer service in a cost effective and affordable high quality machine tool package. That approach worked in 1984 and it still works today in an increasingly sophisticated engineering marketplace.”
He continues, “We are well known for precision machines which are reliable, easy to operate, simple to program and which can be delivered in a matter of days. Our objective is to fully understand the needs of our customers and provide a solution that meets those demands in a fair, transparent and ethical manner. 40 years is a major milestone, and we are looking forward to the next 40. Although I doubt that I will still be around!”