Fagor Automation customers have a new date for their diaries: INDUSTRIE PARIS 2012, one of the most important French machine tool trade shows. There is a lot of expectation as Fagor Automation is known for continually innovating products and services to offer development solutions and opportunities to its customers worldwide.
We have interviewed the Director of the Fagor Automation subsidiary in France, Eric Galland, who spoke to us about the reality of the French market.
1.- The commercial team at Fagor Automation France play a decisive role when it comes to offering a quality service, and the consideration of customer feedback, enabling products and services to evolve. What advantages does the commercial team at Fagor Automation France offer?
The team at Fagor Automation France is exclusively dedicated to Front Office, i.e. they are entirely dedicated to our current and future customers, to respond in real time to their requests. Our colleagues at head office in Spain deal very efficiently with Back Office, and this allows us dedicate as much time as possible on our customers, and thereby treat their requests very responsively and actively. Fagor Automation offers high quality products with the most competitive prices on the market, and by associating a high quality service with reasonable pricing we have managed to capture the attention of the principal actors in the machine tool industry.
2.- What type of customer do you attend to? Do you deal with high volume customers or also with small and medium sized enterprises?
We work with the different types of customer in the French market, providing them, of course, with a response tailored to each individual case, be they large manufacturers or small companies, without forgetting National Education. As our structure is limited in quantitative terms, we have incorporated collaborators in our activities to reinforce our qualitative objective. These technical and commercial collaborators each cover a specific sector and posses the knowledge and the competence required for them to be as efficient as we are. This way, we can together accompany an important number of customers with their developments. This is a vital element for us in order to continue with our establishment and to continue improving, both in terms of our products features and the pertinence of our service.
3.- INDUSTRIE PARIS 2012 will allow you to maintain direct contact with customers. What do your customers most value, your proximity, after-sales service, capacity for innovation…?
We would not be here had we not been able to adequately respond to each of the criteria you mention, amongst many others. It’s the same as with numeric control, each lever is extremely important, and customers that know us can testify how much importance we play on dealing with them simultaneously. Our objective at a show such as INDUSTRIE is to those not familiar with us to discover the type of attention we provide our customers. Thereby we can overcome the reticence of some customers who may think twice about buying a machine equipped with material from Fagor Automation. If you are one of those in doubt, then come and visit our stand so you can experience for yourself the spirit and values that define our company and our collaborators.
(Fagor Automation: Stand 5N69)
4.- One of your products’ principal characteristics, particularly the latest CNC 8065, is their combination of power and ease of use. What other features does this CNC have and, in terms of its measuring ability, what can you say about the 40 m linear encoder?
The two products you mention perfectly reflect the potential for innovation at Fagor Automation that I mentioned.
As regards our new CNC 8065, it integrates everything Fagor Automation has learnt over its 30 year history in order to produce a modern and very powerful CNC, capable of controlling high-end machining centres and lathes, whilst maintaining the ease of use we are known for. For example, machines from the manufacturer SOMAB integrate an “in-house” learning interface in this CNC that allows efficient machines to be designed, one of the most comfortable and simple on the market, enabling operators to machine very complex parts in record time.
As regards our linear measuring systems, there is currently a growing demand for absolute encoder products that integrate the best characteristics. That is why Fagor Automation has developed an absolute linear encoder based on a steel tape, which is pioneering worldwide, as we are the only company that proposes this technology for such lengths (currently 40 metres). Another clear example of the investment made by Fagor Automation in leading edge future technologies.
