In 1983 Gene Haas founded Haas Automation, Inc., to manufacture the industry’s first fully automatic programmable collet indexer. Designed to increase production in his own machine shop, the Haas 5C indexer was an instant success, and over the next four years the product line expanded to include a wide selection of fully programmable rotary tables, indexers, and machine tool accessories.
In 1988 Haas Automation achieved another industry milestone by introducing the first American-built vertical machining center (VMC) to sell for less than $50,000—a price unheard of at the time. The Haas VF-1 sold for a published price of $49,900, and quickly became the industry benchmark for affordable CNC technology.
Today, 25 years later, Haas Automation is the world’s leading manufacturer of CNC machine tools, building, selling, and shipping more machines per month than any other single builder in the Western world. All Haas products are manufactured in the company’s million square-foot facility in Southern California and distributed through a worldwide network of more than 120 Haas factory outlets. Each HFO has complete showroom facilities, factory-trained service personal, extensive spare-parts inventories and fully stocked service vehicles to provide the industry’s best service and support.
From the start Haas Automation has provided reliable, affordable machine tool solutions to job shops and contract manufacturers around the world, relying on volume sales rather than per-unit profit to build the company. Extensive use of lean manufacturing methods and just-in-time production practices allows Haas Automation to produce high-precision CNC products while maintaining exacting quality and value-based pricing. At present there are more than 85,000 Haas CNC machines and 53,000 Haas rotary products in use around the world. In 2008 the company will build more than 14,000 machines, with around 60 percent of them going to international markets.
To learn more: call (800) 331-6746 or go to [www.haascnc.com].
