Falcon to mass produce vertical lathes in Q4

Taipei, July 8, 2005 (CENS)--Falcon Machine Tools Co., Ltd., Taiwan's largest manufacturer of computerized numerically controlled (CNC) surface grinding machines, has successfully developed high-speed vertical lathes and will launch mass production sometime in the fourth quarter of this year.

Production of vertical lathes, said Falcon president Chang Pao-ming, will be an advantage to Falcon's involvement in the production equipment field for automobile parts, and will also help his company gain substantial growth in sales next year.

Falcon began developing production equipment for automobile aluminum-alloy wheels, such as machining centers, in the middle of last year with affiliated Focus CNC Co. in charge of developing horizontal lathes. With the addition of vertical lathes, Falcon will further enrich its product lines, which will help it elevate international competitiveness.

Falcon registered NT$1.436 billion (US$45.29 million at US$1:NT$31.7) in sales last year, up 34% from the previous year and hitting a historic high record. The company posted sales of NT$720 million (US$22.71 million) in the first half of this year, up 4.7% year-on-year.

To get rid of losses generated from electronics industry, in the beginning of this year Falcon sold out a mainland China subsidiary—Hainan Fuhao Electronics to concentrate on core business operations.

Thanks to a solid deployment in the mainland, the recovery of markets in the U.S., Europe and Southeast Asia, and the emergence of Russia, Turkey, India and Vietnam, Falcon boasted it has received sufficient orders to keep its production lines busy through the end of September. Thanks to the influx of foreign orders, the company estimated it would see sales grow over 20% annually this year.

Falcon won a ‘Product Innovation' award from the Ministry of Economic Affairs for its high-speed linear motor-based CNC grinding machine, the first of its kind in Taiwan, at the Taipei International Machine Tools held March 15-20 at the Taipei World Trade Center.

In addition, the company produced 20 units of high-margin CNC grinding machines through molecular decomposition process (MDP). The company projected to produce more than 50 units of the MDP CNC grinding machines this year.

Chang noted his company has obtained Japanese technologies to produce vertical lathes which feature compact size and high-speed machining job. At present the general-type vertical lathe is capable of producing 410 aluminum-alloy wheels per day, but Falcon's prospective one will be able to produce 730 wheels daily.