Hurco have been selling machines into Ireland throughout our 50 years of existence and have some 500 CNC machines in operation, spread across the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Recent events have pushed Hurco to increase its commitment of resources and investment into the region. In non-Covid times there would be at least one Hurco engineer, often two travelling from the UK into Ireland on any given day. This was in addition to our subcontract service partners based in Ireland, DWS Facility Services and MTM, Machine Tool Maintenance. Fortunately, from a sales perspective, Hurco has benefitted from the continuous presence of Michael Gannon as the exclusive representative in Ireland. This presence looks set to continue well into the future, as Michael's son Conor has now also joined the business.
The arrival of Brexit and Covid have created new and unique challenges for our support logistics and commercial activities. Finding solutions has not been easy, but we believe that the actions we have taken should make trading with Hurco as simple and reliable as it was in the past.
Hurco Europe Ltd is now registered for VAT in Ireland. This means that when we bring machines over from our holding warehouse in Venlo, Holland, or ship parts direct from a European subsidiary we can use the benefits of free movement within the EC. The invoice will come from Hurco Europe, using our Irish VAT number. When it is more efficient, or cost effective to ship from the UK, we will do this as a normal export. There is 1% duty to pay, but this is normally offset by the more competitive courier charges that we see from UK suppliers, compared to the EU. Ultimately, we will do everything we can to get parts shipped as quickly and efficiently as possible.
As a result of the special travel arrangements between Eire and the UK, Hurco have been able to send engineers on a regular basis. However, we realise that in the long-term it is important that we increase the number of feet on the ground. We are pleased to announce an agreement to extend Hurco's partnership with DWS Facility Services, Galway. The agreement ensures a closer co-operation between the two businesses, meaning that new engineers from DWS will take part in regular training courses at Hurco and will often shadow Hurco engineers on site. The target is that there will always be 2 fully trained Hurco engineers available as part of DWS Facility Services at any one time. The DWS apprenticeship programme means that young engineers will be exposed to Hurco from an early stage. The latest DWS engineers will arrive for training at Hurco in June.
Steve Coleman, Service and Operations Manager at Hurco commented “We have been working with DWS Facility Services for 5 years now. Their location in Galway is ideal given the spread of Hurco machines across Ireland. We have found Declan and his staff to be extremely professional and technically competent. I am really pleased that we are able to increase our commitment to the partnership"
DWS Facility Services http://dwsfs.ie/
