The Basque company strengthened its international sales and service subsidiaries, confirmed its leading position in several business segments, completed the work to launch the Fagor 8060 control and intensified its innovative action participating in more than a dozen R&D programs cooperating with third parties.
The direct presence of Fagor Automation in thirteen countries intensified in 2013 with the opening of an application center in China, in addition to the Italian Ivrea, with more technical staff at its subsidiaries in Germany and the U.S. raising its workforce abroad to 233 employees out of the 623 that make up the group.
The year 2013 was marked by lower Chinese dynamism and lower activity in Brazil. However, the outlook is now better for the current year thanks to higher demand detected in the last four-month period of the year.
This trend has encouraged them to set a business plan with a 10% raise in sales in 2014.
As for product, the management of Fagor Automation will insist on responding to an increasingly sophisticated MT sector demand. Their catalog will be strengthened this month with the industrialization of the Fagor CNC 8060 that they presented last year and offers great advances in features for machining centers and turning centers of up to seven axes.
To further enhance the features of their units and anticipate market trends, Fagor Automation dedicates between 8% and 10% of its annual revenue on R&D and employs 94 engineers in its Basque technological centers.
Fagor Automation states that R&D investment is essential to maintain or improve market share and become the leading international reference. In this area, they have fulfill an order from an American company for the supply of the two largest systems ever manufactured by the Cooperative, 48 meter long.
Source: Empresa XXI- January 2014