The 12th Awards Ceremony of the Taiwan Machine Tool Industry Awards for Excellence in Research and Innovation or “Award of Eminence” was presented to Leadwell CNC Machines MFG., Corp. for their CNC Lathe TM 1500. This is a multi-tasking machine that will mill, turn or do both simultaneously, and can achieve heavy cutting for the production job shop as well as curved surface milling used in the Aerospace industry.

The Leadwell TM-1500 demonstrated the actual machining of a turbine blade used in the aerospace industry. It included milling and turning simultaneously utilizing all 5 axes to achieve a 2 machine process. Saving time and increasing productivity with the mill/turn technology has now become a keystone in manufacturing.

The awards program honors the people and companies behind the technologies and products that are changing Taiwan’s machine tools industry. The Taiwan Machine Tool Industry Awards 2015 for Excellence in Research & Innovation provide a special kind of inspiration to Taiwan’s creative spirit by focusing attention on the most significant new products.
This year there were 51 entries from 48 companies. Winner of the Supreme Excellence Award for all CNC machine tools was Ching Hung Machinery & Electrical Industrial for its SP3020L ultra precision gantry type wire EDM machine.

First prize in the machining centre category went to Tongtai Machine & Tool for its FV-236 gantry type vertical machining centre. Soco Machinery won the Other NC Machine Tools category with its SLT-152 fiber laser (a five-axis tube cutting machine), while Buffalo Machinery won the Component for Machine Tools category with its RAM-140L, a ram-type spindle for horizontal boring mills.

Other Awards of Eminence went to Fair Friend, Ching Hung Machinery, You Ji Machines, Yida Precision, Chin Fong, Everising Machines, Hiwin and Gifu Enterprises.

A total of 141 visitors from Africa attended the exhibition with 71 of those coming from South Africa, according to the organisers. This figure represents about 1% of total visitors and compares favourably with other Western countries with only the United States, Turkey, Russia, Germany and Italy having more visitors than South Africa.

For more information contact W.D. Hearn on TEL: 021 534 5351 or visit www.wdhearn.co.za