The family company HACO is a leading sub-contractor for very large, relatively flat and round workpieces that also develops its own components high up in the north of the country. This service is very popular with regular customers from the wind power sector and offshore industry who commission the Barritbased company to produce impellers or moulds for wind vanes and components for ship engines or bottle filling systems.

A glance at the machinery shows that, above all, size is sought after in Jutland. “Our latest Dörries vertical lathe was designed for components with a swing diameter of 6,500 mm“, says HACO managing director Henning Albrechtsen. “We have expanded it to 7,500 mm“. The actual leap into the world of XXL machines was taken in 2000: Albrechtsen bought a large, used lathe manufactured by Schiess and immediately received his first major order. At the same time, Dörries Scharmann took on the retrofitting of these production facilities and then also two further Schiess lathes.

For the Starrag Group, sub-contractors are a particular challenge. “It is a matter of investment volumes and, therefore, keeping the machine hour rate low so that the job shop can sell its services successfully. The price of the machine is not crucial, rather the unit costs that can be achieved“, explains graduate engineer and Starrag Group sales director, Hubert Erz. “A very high level of fl exibility is also required so that the sub-contractor is able to adapt to a wide range of orders. It‘s a very difficult balancing act.“

Thanks to its machinery, the family business is able to produce components with a maximum diameter of 7,500 mm and a height of over 3,000 mm, with a precision in the range of hundredths of millimetres, in a single clamping position. The eleven machines are now not only used to produce individual parts, but also series in batches of 100 (machine parts).