MultiTec brings in business for the Waldriches, Siegen and Coburg.

The two main German operations inside the Ingersoll International Group (Rockford, Ill.), Waldrich Coburg G.m.b.H & Co. (Coburg, Germany) and Waldrich Siegen Werkzeugmaschinen G.m.b.H. (Burbach, Germany), each did well during 2000, and turned over about DM 160-million ($75-million) each.

For Waldrich Coburg, the MultiTec approach had won some $61-million of orders for 34 units shipped in a two-year period. The president of Ingersoll Milling Machine Co., Thomas P. McDunn, said at EMO that the MultiTec know-how is now being transferred to Rockford. Ingersoll built two machines based on the MultiTec approach this year.

At Waldrich Coburg, the company has devised an "entry machine" based on the MultiTec approach. It is a fixed bridge, moving table, sold with few optional extras, and, depending on customer specification, retails at around DM 2.6-million (say, $1.2-million).

Director of Marketing at Waldrich Coburg, Burkhard Stillger, told M.I.R., "It is important to build batches of three to six machines, that makes us the profit. In such large machines we are offering fast traverse rates--up to 50 ft./min.--and accelerations up to 0.25 - 1.0G.

In the MultiTec range, Waldrich Coburg offers the MultiProfiler, a large flat-bed, continuous 5-axis machine for complex components in aerospace and general engineering. The MultiContour is a stiff-structured, high-rail, traveling-gantry precision five-axis MC for mold and die milling. New at EMO was the MultiProfiler, from Waldrich Siegen, which embodies MultiTec ideas. It is a high-speed horizontal-spindle profiler for the precision machining of complex aircraft panels.

The MultiContour and MultiProfiler embody a split-spindle design from Ingersoll Rockford, in which the motor-bearing assembly is separate to that of the machine spindle assembly. The idea is, if there is a "crash", then only the spindle assembly has to be replaced -- and quickly. Waldrich Siegen pursued the idea with spindle manufacturer Weiss G.m.b.H. (Schweinfurt, Germany).

An interesting structural development is steel-fiber-reinforced concrete, already a growing phenomenon in the tunnel-lining industry. A core of this concrete, encased in a welded steel box, provides a better damping effect than cast iron. Waldrich Coburg has investigated the idea with academics at the Coburg Fachhochschule in Germany.