The second year mechanical engineering students were very kindly invited to visit the MAZAK European Technology Centre (ETC) on the 4th of November. Alan Mucklow, Group Product Manager, welcomed us and outlined the mutually beneficial collaborative links with the UoB that included the support for our Formula Student team, year in industry placements for students, the loan of two state of the art milling and turning machine centres for teaching and research, and these already traditional student visits. He also stressed that Marcus Burton, Group Managing Director Europe, and he together with five other Birmingham alumni at Yamazaki Mazak UK would like to build upon and develop further this collaboration. Then, the day included talks by Dr John Liverton, Product Manager, on Mazak’s range of machine tools and design philosophy and Mark Hall, Product Manager on interesting application stories followed by a lecture on machining processes by Professor Stefan Dimov. After lunch the visit continued with a tour of both the manufacturing plant and the ETC that showed a range of Mazak machine tools in action. MAZAK is renowned for its innovative ideas, especially in the development of multi-tasking machine tools, which combine milling and turning operations in the same machining setup. The ETC is an amazing example of how continual investment and improvement, despite hard times, can ensure that the company will continue to invent more powerful and ground breaking solutions.