Accurite has never sold splitters before but since late July has been representing Mec in the UK and has just sold its first machine – a C450 open sided splitter complete with motorised conveyor system – to Ashen Cross Quarry in Somerton, Somerset.
Towards the end of this year, Accurite anticipates having two Mec demonstration machines at its factory in Cumbria, where it now has a range of machinery on show and available for customers to try out before making a purchasing decision.
Mark Brownlee, Accurite’s Managing Director, says Accurite now has nearly all the machines it sells available to be seen and tried out in its 1,500m2 premises. That is about £750,000-worth of machines in stock.
Mark says sales this year are back to pre-crash levels and if he could find more engineers with the right skills they could be even higher. And it is not just from the UK. Accurite has made a speciality of refurbishing used machinery and has sold the machines to countries around the world including India, Dubai, West Indies, Vietnam and USA.
Demand is so high the company is only reconditioning machines as they are sold and there is still a three-week delay in getting them ready. “That last happened in 2006!” says Mark.
The high demand for used machinery means Accurite is often happy to part-exchange machines, which helps customers buying new machines to reach their purchasing decisions.
Accurite’s largest contract this year has been supplying six Simec wire saws and a fully automatic cutting line, altogether worth £800,000, to Fairhurst Stone Merchants’ new factory in Settle, North Yorkshire.
Other makes sold by Accurite include Comandulli edge polishers. Mark says there has been a significant increase in orders of Comandullis this year, although sales of the lower end Pentas and Musas have been good for the past two or three years.
Comandulli has moved on to touch screen operation, and includes as standard part-polishing programs, which many fabricators now demand.
Comandulli’s first vertical edge-polisher, introduced at Marmomacc last year, is now in full production and Accurite has four on order for delivering before the end of this year.
Accurite says it has seen good sales for Omega and Edilux, especially with existing customers up-dating their models and part exchanging the existing machines. Sales of Denver CNC saws and workcentres are 40% ahead of this time last year.
The Denver Skema is the UK best-seller with more than 600 of them sold since 1996. The latest version has linear guides, a larger cutting area, and a user friendly touch screen operating panel that most people get to grips with in less than 15minutes.
Water treatment is another area where Accurite has had particular success this year but, again, more about that in the November issue of Natural Stone Specialist.