The SMART-Ua, an unmanned machining produced by Hwacheon. 

(photos: courtesy of Hwacheon)

Hwacheon Group has grown into a household name as Korea’s representative machine tools maker since its inception 62 years ago.

Hwacheon Group Chairman Kwon Young-ryual said his late father Kwon Seung-kwan launched a tiny ironworks factory in 1952 at the height of the Korean War (1950-53) with his expertise gained from a career at a Japanese-run molding company. Initially, Hwacheon Machine Tool supplied iron railings for bridges that needed repairs following the war, and later expanded into iron gates for irrigation facilities and floodgates for ports. 

Taking a look at the 62-year history of Hwacheon, it vividly demonstrates how the local machine tools industry has made tremendous strides and evolved into a promising export industry. An initial maker of motors and charcoal briquette-making devices, Hwacheon has now grown into a global player of a wide range of the highest-quality machining centers, turning centers, as well as related software and more. 

Hwacheon Group Chairman Kwon Young-ryual

Hwacheon developed Korea’s first NC lathe in June 1977; the nation’s first CNC milling machine and copy milling machine in October 1983; and Korea’s first NCTC in December 1988. For its latest feat, Hwacheon was the first company in the world in 2012 to develop the smart machine, SMART-Ua, adopting convergence technologies to realize unmanned fabrication and whole-process automation for maximizing quality and products and writing a new chapter in the machine tools history.

Hwacheon displayed 22 of the latest kinds of machines, including 13 kinds of machining centers and seven kinds of turning centers as well as diverse software at the 16th Seoul International Machine Tool Show (SIMTOS) 2014, which took place at KINTEX in Goyang, north of Seoul, from April 9-13.

Among the eye-catching exhibits displayed by the company was the “i3 2500” and the “HIREX-4000.” Developed under the catchphrase “Innovative, Integrative, Interactive,” the i3 2500 offers optimum solutions in multidisciplinary fabricating fields such as the shipbuilding, aerospace, medical, and automobile industries. HIREX-4000 is a column-moving parts processing machining center that could minimize the setting time and double productivity by playing two roles. 

Stealing the show was the “SIRUS-UL+ (Ver. 2),” an updated version of the “SIRUS-UL+,” a die and mold machining center that was very popular among customers. The “UPR-600” is a die and mold machine for super-precision optical films in the LCD display field. 

The “Hi-TECH 850BB+” is a large-sized turning center for producing long shafts and pipes for use in the oil & energy, construction, and machinery industries. 

Hwacheon demonstrated the exhibits on display via its remote monitoring Machine to Service (MTS) system to offer services differentiating itself from other machinery makers. The MTS system is a next-generation after-sale machine designed to monitor data remotely and fix possible glitches so that clients’ machines can be operated at the maximum rate.