Perfect timing
In life, timing is everything. So, Austria-headquartered large-capacity mill-turn machine tool specialist
WFL Millturn Technologies has got it just right with the launch of its myMILLTURN portal. As it turns
out, the online platform development was right on cue for the current global coronavirus/Covid-19
pandemic. Andrew Allcock talked to Kenneth Sundberg, managing director of WFL Millturn Technologies’
aftermarket sales, to learn more
Launched in April this year as a Germanlanguage
web portal, WFL’s
myMILLTURN went global in mid-
September. Currently the online platform has
some 100 user customers, with up to 200+
individuals having login details, reports
Kenneth Sundberg, managing director of
WFL Millturn Technologies’ aftermarket
sales. And that’s an important detail; the
accounts are individual users, not companywide
accounts. “Use of the platform comes
with a certain responsibility, you have to
agree terms and conditions,” he highlights.
As to the spread of those customers,
he says: “Obviously, we have our biggest
customer base in the German-speaking
countries of Austria and Germany – Germany
being number one historically. But USA is
becoming more and more important, and we,
of course, cover the rest of the world as
well.” In the UK, Kyal Machine Tools is the
company’s agent ( www.is.gd/ohoqud ). Of the
uptake so far, he adds: “I must say that the
interest has been higher than maybe I
anticipated. Perhaps people have more time
now in the pandemic, you know, to look into
such things, to learn and get inspiration, and
so on.”
The platform is not yet fully developed,
although Sundberg says the company has
experienced a very good start with its initial
capabilities. “We want to develop it further.
We will listen to our customers and users to
discover what they think is valuable to have,
you know, and how to interact with
customers. We’re creating this to get a
platform between the WFL mill-turn machine
users worldwide, including user to user, but
also between us and individual users.
“So we hope that we will get a lot of
traffic – a lot of tips and tricks around
complete machining, advanced
manufacturing – to increase customer value
further and by having the dialogue, and we’re
also thinking about maybe going out to some
of the most active users we have and asking
them, ‘okay, what would you like to see to
make it more interesting and dynamic?’.”
At launch, the full potential of
myMILLTURN is available for free, but this
will change during next year to a multi-level
subscription model, details of which are as
yet undecided. So today there are four key
capabilities myToolFinder, myCommunity,
myAcademy and myCapaMax. It is
myToolFinder that is the most used facility to
date, Machinery was told. No surprise,
perhaps, as this actually maps to an existing
conventional offline service but is now
streamlined via the new platform. The online
service allows users to gain inspiration from
what WFL has already achieved in the
special tools area, allowing them to work
24 December 2020 | www.machinery.co.uk | MachineryMagazine | @MachineryTweets
/www.machinery.co.uk