Brian Papke, president of Mazak Corp. said on Dec. 5 that Yamazaki Mazak Corp. has already begun installing relocation detectors on all new Mazak machine tools it manufactures. The purpose of these detectors is to prevent the resale of Mazak machines to countries and businesses that are currently prohibited under the export laws of the U.S. and Japanese governments.
Papke said, Installation of these detectors has already begun and will be on every machine Yamazaki Mazak manufactures. We recognize that some potential customers may be reluctant to buy our machines with these detectors in place, but we believe this industry leading action is the right thing to do. Papke added that the initiative was launched by Tomohisa Yamazaki, president of Yamazaki Mazak Corp.and will apply to all machines sold by Mazak with no exceptions.
The new detectors require a unique passcode to be entered whenever a machine is moved or installed. Failure to enter the correct passcode prevents the machine from operating. The passcode changes each time the machine is moved and must be reissued by the company. While the technology to do this has been available for some time, this is the first implementation designed to prevent violation of U.S. and Japanese export restrictions.
The announcement was made at the Manufacturing Technologies for Global Competitiveness conference held at the Mazak Corp.s headquarters in Florence, Ky.
