Was excepting the factory to be modern and brighter/spiffier , because Cazaneuve is a major French machine tool manufacturer, if not the biggest.
http://www.cazeneuve.fr/company
Thank you for that!
I should "get out more", but it was neat w/r the "connection" to my first-generation (cast base, not weldment) HBX-360-BC built perhaps in the 1970's?
Cazeneuve are
still reliant on the work of two generations of genius - Henri Bruet (father), inovator, Big Bang through War Two, then son Henri Rene Bruet and the "HB" line (from the initials of BOTH Father and Son).
Compare the "capstan" TS, the beds, and note that the migration to Optica and Optimax "teach in CNC hybrids" seems mostly a move to servo-driven spindle instead of variator & geartrain, the integration of Siemens controls.
Underneath that? Same bed, base, TS, and carriage major castings and assembly techniques, etc.
"Big"? Well ... machine-tool builders are
never as "big", economically, as their
major CUSTOMERS..
Think transport (automotive. marine, and aerospace), just for the most obvious.
Cazeneuve was born into financial stress - see Tony's website - and has never really escaped it!
See old French news as to mergers and reorganizations.
Hope they survive.
It is a long way from a certainty.