NEWS

Haas Celebrates Best Supplier Award at Olympiade des Métiers

Between February 4th and 6th, 2009, The Grand Palais in Lille, Northern France was the venue of the national final of the Olympiade des Métiers (The Trade Olympics). Haas Automation is proud to have been present both as a supporter of the event and also as the recipient of the best supplier award, presented by the president of Worldskills France, Mr. Yvan Valentinuzzi.

On the morning of February 5th, the best twenty‐five precision engineering students, chosen from schools and technical colleges across France, were assigned the task of designing and machining test parts on six Haas Mini Mills and five Haas SL‐10 CNC turning centres. Two days later, the results of those practical tests were judged and gold, silver and bronze medals were awarded to the winning students. Gold medalists from the Olympiade des Métiers will go forward to represent France in the Worldskills competition to be held in Calgary, Canada in September of this year: an event that will host participants from 50 countries and will benefit from considerable support from Haas.

Currently, there are more than 240 Haas CNC machine tools used in French schools and technical colleges, many of which are strongly supported by local HFOs (Haas Factory Outlets). Haas Automation’s participation in the Olympiade des Métiers event was presided over by the HFO responsible for the Orsay region, a division of Realmeca. Mr. Loïc Faupin from Realmeca was present during the Olympiade des Métiers, in Lille.

“Haas machines provide students with the very best hands‐on experience before they leave education to work in industry,” he said. “Realmeca has already supplied more than 150 Mini Mills to schools in the Paris area alone. These machines have been used to train 3‐ 4000 students, some of who are here today. Equally impressive is that some 4000 teachers around France have also been trained on Haas machines.”

Haas Automation’s support of the national and global Worldskills competitions is another facet of its long‐term commitment to CNC education and training. Mr. Bert Maes, HTEC coordinator at Haas Automation Europe, says that the company intends to continue and to increase its support.

“Haas sees CNC training and education as one of the greatest challenges facing the precision engineering sector, in Europe and around the world. We have already made tremendous progress with the HTEC program in Europe and we are keen to support events like the Olympiade des Métiers. At Worldskills in Calgary, for example, Haas will supply more than 20 CNC machine tools. No other machine tools builder supports education in this way.”

Stop press: On 15 May 2009 Haas Automation Europe will open the first HTEC in France at the Lycée Sainte‐Barbe, Saint‐Etienne, HFO – a division of Performer CNC.