Experience Center to lead Dormer Pramet into the future

A brand-new purpose built facility aims to bring together more than 100 years of industry knowledge to develop new materials and technologies.

Dormer Pramet’s Experience Center is a major investment by the company that aims to provide expertise, training, research and development and equipment to further increase the scope and performance of its wide assortment of cutting tools.

The Experience Center, or XP Center for short, is located at Dormer Pramet’s indexable production unit (PU) in Šumperk, Czech Republic.

It was officially opened at a special ceremony with Klas Forsström, Sandvik Machining Solutions (SMS) president, Stefan Steenstrup, Dormer Pramet president, Marek Kotrlý, managing director and production manager Dormer Pramet and Zdenek Broz, Mayor of Šumperk, performing the ribbon cutting.

At the opening Klas Forsström, SMS President, said: “We often talk about R&D, application development, proximity to the customer and that is very much what this center represents. This is the future of our industry, to interact with our customers and at the same time, bring it in to our own production, so this facility is very important.”

Stefan Steenstrup, Dormer Pramet president, added: “Šumperk is a very important location for Dormer Pramet and the ideal place for our XP Center. More than 600 of our 1,400 employees are based there and around 40 percent of everything we sell is manufactured there.

“The XP Center is, though, very much a global facility and will be a focal point for many activities. It will help us to expand our knowledge to develop new solutions for our customers.

“We are very focused on certain areas of the market and have a unique position in numerous industry sectors, including railway and heavy machining. To keep that unique position, we need to continue to develop these areas in the future, along with our broad customer offer across all segments.”

The XP Center will be home to Dormer Pramet’s materials team who are currently focusing on researching the properties of substrates, developing new CVD and PVD coatings and improving the implementation of the cutting edge.

Part of the R&D projects driven from this site will be the creation and implementation of new production technologies, improving knowledge to support the manufacture of cemented carbide products in the most efficient way.

Also, the XP Center features a modern laboratory equipped with state-of-the-art technology, such as electron microscopes, 3D scanners and a machine for measuring material wear during repeated stress.

The very core of the XP Center is a modern testing room featuring a variety of machine tools and measuring equipment. This will allow Dormer Pramet to test the functional properties of product prototypes and verify whether the cutting tool meets expectations before being put into production.

Further machines will be reserved for customer tests. These will also form part of a comprehensive training base, which consists of a presentation hall and several conference rooms.