Omax Corporation

OMAX Corporation is a large American provider of multi-axis (the ability to cut non-flat objects) water jet systems for use in the fabrication and manufacturing industry.[1] It is the second largest water jet machining company in the United States of America.[2]

OMAX Corporation
IndustryIndustrial Water Jet machinery
Founded1993
HeadquartersKent, Washington
Key people
Dr. John Cheung , CEO & Founder
Dr. John H. Olsen , VP of Operations & Co-Founder
Number of employees
240
Websitehttp://www.omax.com/
This article is about Omax Corporation. It is not to be confused with OfficeMax.

History

OMAX was established in 1993 by Dr. John Cheung and Dr. John Olsen. They made high-pressure abrasive jet machining (a machining and fabrication process using a mixture of strong abrasives and liquid propelled by a high velocity gas) to erode material to form intricate shapes or specific edge shapes.[3][4][5]

Aviation High School Robotics

Each year OMAX sponsors the robotics team from Aviation High School. OMAX supervises the Aviation "Skunkworks" Team as members cut parts for their robot at OMAX's headquarters. The Aviation High Robotics team won the Creativity Award in the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Championship held in St. Louis, Missouri in April 2011.[6][7]

Competitors

OMAX's largest competitor is Flow International Corp. To avoid competition Flow International attempted to buy OMAX for $109 million, but because of the downturn in the economy, the offer was reduced to $75 million. In 2009 it was announced that Flow called off the merger stating "We believe that our path forward alone is far superior to one combined with OMAX at the wrong price". John Olsen co-founder of OMAX stated that had the companies merged there would have certainly been layoffs.[2] Other competitors include Jet Edge Waterjets, and ESAB Cutting Products.

References
  1. "OMAX Corporation". Gamasutra. UBM TechWeb. Retrieved 24 April 2013.
  2. "Kent-based Flow calls off merger with smaller water-jet rival OMAX". Seattle Times. The Seattle Times Company Online. Retrieved 24 April 2013.
  3. Boothroyd, Geoffrey; Knight, Winston A. (1989), Fundamentals of machining and machine tools (2nd ed.), Marcel Dekker, pp. 478–479, ISBN 978-0-8247-7852-1.
  4. Todd, Robert H.; Allen, Dell K.; Alting, Leo (1994), Manufacturing Processes Reference Guide, Industrial Press Inc., pp. 2–5, ISBN 0-8311-3049-0.
  5. "OMAX Corporation". OMAX Corporation. Retrieved 24 April 2013.
  6. "OMAX® Sponsors Winning Team at FIRST Robotics Championship". ThomasNet.com. Thomas Publishing Company. Retrieved 24 April 2013.
  7. "Welcome to Skunkworks Robotics". Skunkworks Robotics. Aviation High School. Archived from the original on 4 May 2013. Retrieved 24 April 2013.

See also


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