Half-century contribution to industrial progress through precision cutting tools

ANCA ITALIA
Pad. 11 stand E20

Family, fulfillment, and a fascination with technology are all part of a formula that has seen ANCA lead the demanding niche of CNC tool and cutter grinders for a half-century.
In its time, the Australia-based global business has made an enormous yet largely hidden contribution to the world, selling over 10,000 5-axis CNC machines to over 2,500 customers. Around 1.1 billion tools have been created using ANCA’s grinders.
“You would be very unlikely to find any bit of advanced equipment, anywhere in the world, that hasn’t been touched by a cutting tool which has been manufactured on one of our machines,” explains co-founder Pat Boland, whose company’s customers include Boeing, Rolls-Royce, Iscar, Sandvik, and many other household names.
Boland and Pat McCluskey – then an electrical engineer and an industrial electronics tradesman – met at a government-owned munitions factory at Melbourne in 1968. The two Pats started ANCA in 1974 in a spare room at Boland and wife Libby’s home.

McCluskey explains: “Even before we started ANCA, Pat and I have always been driven by simply wanting to get machines to do things better. My enduring philosophy in business is if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten. New ideas and new thinking are the basis of our business.”
ANCA’s highly sophisticated CNC grinding machines are exported around the world, with 98 percent of its revenue being generated by exports. The ANCA Group also makes associated equipment and software, including robot arms, software, and control systems, and offers automation services and technology to OEM machine builders.
Leading the incredibly demanding tool and cutter market – where nanometre-level details matter – means a reinvestment of roughly a tenth of revenues back into R&D.
A near-obsession with solving customer problems has seen ANCA contribute a collection of world firsts to its industry, including the first probe for digitising tools, first modem for support and diagnostics in a machine, first full and true 3D simulation of the grinding process, and many more.
At BI-MU in Milano, ANCA will present the uniquely precise FX7 ULTRA with nanometre resolution CNC control and precision package, as well as the highly sophisticated, complete solution package for gear tools on the GCX machine.

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