Mr. Michel Vuichard, former employee of the Research and development centre of Charmilles Technologies, installs a first machine on the ground floor of his house.

The company already employs 10 people and captures a large EDM market for luxury ST Dupont lighters. Nearly 2,000,000 lighters passed through the company for 27 years.

1st extension. The company has the skills to transform its own machines or make special machines. So it consolidates its leading position by offering its customers surface finishes and high precision at attractive prices.

2nd extension. The company has extended on three levels : Computing, Electrodischarge machining and Tooling.

The company has made a name for itself in the field of die sinking EDM, especially as a technical parts manufacturer. At that time it starts to use wire cutting. Wire cutting expands rapidly as well as all sorts of information systems.

Michel Vuichard, his son Philippe and their team work together to carry out
increasingly complicated projects, in particular :

• 4-axis machining for the manufacturing of steam turbines
• actuating cams for airliner control systems
• wire cutting machining with a servo-driven rotating axis for manufacturing solenoids

With a degree in mechanical engineering, a university post-graduate professional degree in management and after having worked for 3 years within the team, Philippe VUICHARD takes over the management of the company.

A micro-drilling department starts production with a full-time employee, 2 Sarix machines and extensive optical control means.
Quality control is enhanced by the use of a ZEISS three-dimensional measuring machine equipped with a scanning system.

The company invests more than €400,000 € in 2 top-of-the-range wire cutting
machines. These 4030 Twin Wire machines allow not only very high precision (± 0.002 for certain parts) and very low surface roughness (Ra 0.16) but also the easy use of fine wire such as Ø 0.1, Ø 0.07, Ø 0.05, Ø 0.03.

New line of business, new know-how. Investment in a Matsuura LX0 5-axis
machining centre with Open Mind licence. This acquisition gives the company new abilities in micro-machining and especially hard metal milling for 65 HRC steels.
Micro-milling becomes a major line of business with the achievement of mirror finish and the use of Ø 20μm milling cutter.

The company is one of the few companies to use 20 μm wire in wire cutting and manufacture components of less than 0.001 grams. It has an expertise unique in France for EDM die sinking with a 20 μm-wide shapes.
Export sales have grown steadily up to 65% of annual sales with customers in
Sweden, Britain and Switzerland.

To meet its customers’ requirements in terms of micromachining and high precision, the VUICHARD company acquires a laser micro-cutting machine worth €600,000.

A measuring microscope is installed next to the laser micro-cutting machine in order to guarantee that 100% of the dimensions comply with the specifications, even in mass production.

2014 also saw the birth of a new company in Switzerland. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of VUICHARD SAS named NANO CUT Sàrl.