Following is the straight scoop, maybe more than you wanted to know but answering just your questions would likely generate several more. Full disclosure, I’m in sales but have been with Busellato and SCM for nearly 15 years.
SCM Group S.p.A. bought Delmac S.p.A. in 2006. Delmac S.p.A. consisted of Busellato CNC Machines, Celaschi Double and Single-end tenoners, SAG material handling, Delmac Engineering and its U.S. distributor, Delmac Machinery Group. The Busellato factory was located in Thiene Italy, in the same town with SCM’s Stefani edgebander factory which had been recently expanded. When the economic downturn hit in 2008, both the Stefani and Busellato factories had excess capacity. It was only prudent to close the Busellato factory and move production into an unused area of the Stefani facility. This is where production remains today. This move served to cut costs of course, but also allowed Busellato factory workers, engineers and designers who lived in the area to keep their jobs. SCM has many production facilities several hours south of Thiene in Rimini and moving production there may have been sensible from an economic standpoint but much of the knowledge and experience of the Busellato workforce would have been lost.
So Busellato continued production in Thiene and changes in the product were centered around taking advantage of the economies of scale offered by SCM’s buying power. One example of this change was a switch from Busch to Becker vacuum pumps. The control system and programming software by TPA, better known as Genesis Evolution, continued and is still in place throughout the product line with one exception.
In 2011, a joint project between SCM and Busellato engineers was launched to produce a low-cost, high-quality nested based machine built in Italy. This machine is known as the Busellato Easy Jet and the SCM Pratix S. The machines use a new control with a powerful but easy to use handheld controller running on Windows CE. These two machines are built for both divisions in Busellato’s Thiene facility.
So John’s original question should be answered. The two machines have the same base and control systems but could differ based on selected options. The distribution of the machines is through different channels.
Saying where we will be in 5-6 years can only be based on recent history. SCM bought the Delmac Group 8 years ago and has weathered some really bad economic times. If the idea was to phase out Busellato, it would have made sense to do that when the industry was struggling. Better times are back and Busellato is continuing its heritage of high quality machines built in Italy. Come see us next week at IWF in booth 6452. Sorry, couldn’t resist the plug!