Mills delivers the goods.

Date: 08 January 2010

Mills CNC's sales in 2009 top £25 million.

Mills CNC, the exclusive distributor of Doosan machine tools in the UK and Ireland has announced that sales in 2009 exceeded £26M and that over 250 customers (during the Year) took delivery of new Doosan machine tools.

These 'better than expected' sales results, according to Nick Frampton, Mills' managing director, 'demonstrate the continuing high demand for and popularity of Doosan machine tools, and the significant pulling power and strength of Mills' after-sales services with UK and Irish precision manufacturers.' The results also reflect the success of a number of innovations and initiatives introduced by Mills during the Year that helped stimulate sales and raise the profile (and market share) of both the Mills and Doosan brands.

Continues Nick Frampton:

'2009 was an important year for Mills. Despite the severe economic downturn, sales of our ever-popular Puma and Lynx lathes and turning centres remained strong - and our overall machine tool sales performance was boosted by the introduction of new machine models like the new Doosan DNM (Heidenhain-Controlled) range of vertical machining centres and the new range of Doosan horizontal machining centres - both of which took the market by storm.'

As well as launching new machines in 2009, Mills also introduced a number of machine tool initiatives and incentives which had an immediate and positive impact.

Says Nick Frampton:

'Rather than being at the mercy of the market and waiting for things to happen we took the bull by the horns and developed a number of new and different initiatives all designed to encourage customers to invest with us. Probably the most successful of these was our 'SMART Options' rental scheme (launched in the Summer of 2009), which allowed customers to acquire and take advantage of having a new Doosan machine on a short-term basis - enabling them to defer the decision to either purchase the machine outright, continue renting or return the machine until after the initial 12 month rental period elapsed. To date some eight different customers have opted for the SMART Options rental scheme.'

Other machine tool initiatives introduced by Mills included the creation and launch of a used Doosan CNC machine website - giving customers direct access to quality used Doosan's backed by Mills' 'best-in-class' after-sales service and support.

As well as machine tool initiatives, 2009 also saw Mills significantly strengthen and improve its after-sales service provision.

Says Nick Frampton:

'In tough economic times customers expect and demand more from their machine tools. They are looking to exploit the full potential, capacity and capability of their machines - and they need their machine tool provider to be able to respond quickly and effectively if any issues affecting the uptime and smooth-running of their machines arise. As a consequence during 2009 we employed additional service and application engineers, and recruited a dedicated Project Manager to handle the large and complex (often turnkey) projects we are increasingly being asked to manage for our customers.'

2009 also saw Mills refine and make even more comprehensive its range of after-sales services. Launched under the '360' brand and covering service contracts, spare parts, ancillary equipment - Mills '360' services have been designed to give customers complete peace of mind over everything concerning the current and future performance of their Doosan machine/s.

In September 2009 the '360' range of services was extended which resulted in the launch of the '360' Training Academy. The Academy, located at Mills' facility in Leamington, provides manufacturers with access to high-quality, cost-competitive and comprehensive CNC Programmer (Fanuc and Heidenhain), CNC Operator and CNC Machine Tool Maintenance Training courses. Companies and organisations that have already booked courses at the '360' Training Academy include the MAA (Midlands Aerospace Alliance) and Cambridge University.

Concludes Nick Frampton:

'Clearly we are delighted with our performance in 2009 and that customers reacted and responded so positively to the new and different initiatives we introduced during the Year. As far as 2010 is concerned - we will be launching new Doosan machines into the market in the very near future, (the first of these will be the new range of Doosan 5-axis machines that will come on-stream in February 2010), and will be developing more exciting initiatives that I'm confident will capture the imagination of customers. Watch this space.'