Mollart Engineering is now the largest exporter of deep hole drilling machines to the Chinese market. This was confirmed to managing director Guy Mollart (pictured) during his visit to the company stand at the recent CIMT exhibition in Beijing.
At the show, Mollart demonstrated the latest version of its Drill Sprint deep hole drilling machine, which has a capacity up to 22 mm diameter by 1,500 mm hole depth. It also displayed tooling and application examples.
As a result of the exhibition, installations of Mollart machines will increase further with four immediate orders taken on the stand. These are in addition to 12 machine installations made by the company to China in quarter one of this year. However, most important for future revenuesis the signing of a joint venture agreement with the Chinese to produce an 'economy' range of Drill Sprint machines tailored specifically to satisfy the fast growing demands of the domestic market.
With Mollart Engineering entering its 2011-2012 financial year in April with some £8 million backlog of orders for machine tools and tooling and contracts signed for producing subcontract components, Mr Mollart also closed 2011 with record revenues. Altogether, the group divisions achieved a turnover of £12.8 million from the Chessington, Surrey and Resolven, South Wales sites.
"We have now doubled our level of sales achieved in 2006 and this year across all three divisions of machines, subcontract and tooling we are well on target to achieve a further 18% overall growth," Mr Mollart said.
Following significant investment in new equipment, Mollart's subcontract operations have penetrated new sectors to contribute over half to group turnover. Both sites are now additionally supplying medical, semi-conductor and deep sea exploration customers on a regular basis and have recently drawn in two new customers by securing important aerospace contracts.
As a result of recent growth, both sites in the UK will receive further investment in facilities and equipment.
"Budgets are also approved to extend Chessington by 3,000 ft², which will be split to provide additional area for machine tool build and to expand our machine design, development and application areas. This investment will provide a key element to endorse future growth of the business," concluded Mr Mollart.
