MT&T Expo: Rise of the machines

MT&T Expo: Rise of the machines

Zakki P. Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

An international expo in Kemayoran that ended on Saturday hosted
a rare and unique event in Indonesia -- a display of the world's
latest metalworking and precision engineering technology.

At one booth, Mazak's US$100,000 UN600V "ultra narrow"
machining center was "crafting" a Volkswagen machine block. The
Nagoya-based Mazak takes pride in the fact that the high-end
product has a spindle that can accelerate to a top speed of
20,000 rpm in just 0.55 seconds -- which it claims is the world's
fastest.

In another part of the Expo, Germany-based Walter
Maschinenbau's 5-axis CNC grinding machine, Helitronic Vision,
was "sculpturing" a carbonite grinder for machines like Mazak's
UN600V.

The Helitronic, priced at roughly $490,000, can make a grinder
-- about the size of a typical whiteboard marker -- in just six
minutes, compared to many local machines that would need half a
day to sculpt just one.

Walter sales director for Asia Pacific Michael Schmid said
that Indonesian firms usually imported such grinders from
Singapore at a price of $30 per piece. Schmid calculates that in
one day the machine can make 240 grinders, which would bring in
$7200 per day.

These machines represented only a small part of the state-of-
art equipment and technology on display at the International
Metalworking Technology and Machine Tools Exhibition and
Conference (MT&T) 2005 -- the first of its kind in the country
and held from June 1 to June 4.

The displays featured sheet metal and metal-forming machinery,
metal cutting machine tools, accessories and many other types of
equipment. There were products on display from 337 firms
representing 23 countries.

The companies included global names such as Agie Charmilles,
Bruderer, Finn-Power, Mazak, Makino, Mitsubishi Electric, Nikon,
Sumitomo Electric Hardware Corp., Okamoto, Seyi, Walter and
Trumpf.

Federation of Indonesian Metalworking and Machine Industry
Associations (GAMMA) chairman Achmad Safiun said he believed the
event provided an ideal forum for industry players from across
the globe to learn from each other's technology.

"The event is expected to facilitate a transfer of technology
that will boost the competitiveness of the ailing local
industries so that they can compete at least at the regional
level," Safiun said.

The timing was perfect for the event, Safiun said, considering
that Indonesia's economy was starting to pick up again which in
turn would require more machinery to support the development of
the manufacturing sector.

At present, the country's stagnant machinery and metalworking
industry can only supply about 40 percent of the domestic demand,
leaving a lot of room for improvement.

GAMMA, in cooperation with Southeast Asia's Machine Tool Club
(MTC) -- an association comprising global market leaders in
the industry -- intends to make the TechnoShow a routine event,
with the next one scheduled for August of next year.

MTC chairman, and also president of Agie Charmilles Pte Ltd,
Antoine Coletta, said the organizers had not set any transaction
target for the event as what they were primarily interested in
was for the expo to introduce the latest technology to the local
market.

Coletta said that Indonesia spent a lot of money importing the
sort of tools that local producers were unable to make. "So we
are bringing the technology here so that local players can learn
the know-how," he told The Jakarta Post.

Minister of Industry Andung A. Nitimihardja in his opening
address said that to meet the local demand, the country's imports
of capital goods had increased to $269 million last year from
$221.6 million in 2002.

The demand would continue to rise as the country's motorcycle
sales had been expanding by an annual average of 33 percent, car
sales by 23.9 percent and heavy vehicle sales by 30.8 percent
over the last three years, the minister said, adding that the
manufacturing sector was targeted to expand by an average of 8.6
percent per year.