Specialty CNC in Bloomington, Indiana, is an entrepreneurial success story that illustrates the fortitude of small business owners across America.
Specialty CNC owners Mike Baker and Roger Shoufler say they chose Hurco because they need machines that are rigid, reliable, and machines that have a control that is easy to learn. “The
Hurco control makes it easy to train. We teach on the job and from our experience, it only takes the new guys a couple of days to get up to speed,” says Mike He adds that each machining center must be flexible enough to handle multiple applications and reliable enough to run lights out. “We run these machines hard and they never give us a problem,” says Mike.
While Specialty CNC has remained busy throughout the latest economic downturn, building the business certainly didn’t happen overnight. Mike and Roger started Specialty CNC in Mike’s garage in 2001 working nights and weekends after their day jobs to get the company running. In 2005, they went full time with Specialty CNC.
Currently, they have four Hurco machining centers in their 2,400 square foot shop: two
VMX42 machining centers, a
VMX30S and a
VMX24. Both owners say they keep buying Hurco machine tools because they are rigid, reliable, and the control lets them save steps and save time.
“We do one-offs, prototype work, and small production runs of 500-1,000 pieces for medical, aerospace, and government,” says Baker. “One thing that is great is the ability to implement offline programs and use conversational features, such as drilling,” Mike explains when describing the
NC/Conversational Merge feature. This feature enables customers to apply numerous conversational features to existing G-code programs. Mike leverages numerous WinMax software features to find the most efficient way to approach each part. For Mike and Roger increased efficiency means keeping their business profitable and continuing their growth cycle. For Hurco, continuing to develop technology that helps customers increase profitability means that Hurco is playing an important role in supporting the economic engine of this county—small businesses that make a difference each and every day.