NUMBER 02 - Haas Automation, Inc.

The small town of Rugles is approximately 130 km north
of Le Mans, venue of the world’s greatest 24-hr motor race.
If you were born in Rugles and you had even the slightest
interest in anything mechanical, chances are that you’d pay
attention for one week of every year when race teams from
around the planet pass the front door of your family home
on their way to what enthusiasts regard as a hallowed and
magical place.
Jean Michel Vallet did. In fact, like many of his
contemporaries, Vallet was smitten by the sights and sounds
of Le Mans, and decided at an early age that one day he’d
own and race his own sports car.
In the intervening 40 years or so, Monsieur Vallet has built
his eponymous engineering workshop by making precision
components for mostly local companies, but always with one
eye on his long-held dream of building a race car, and one
day, perhaps, driving it at Le Mans.
| www.HaasCNC.com
In the long interval, Vallet has honed his knowledge
and skills as a manufacturing engineer. In the early 1970s
he was quick to realise the potential of CNC, investing in
the first of many numerically controlled machines. Within
20 years, his collection of machine tools was, he says,
eclectic. Then, in the late 1990s the time came to move to
new premises; it was the ideal opportunity to streamline the
company’s workshop.
“When we built this new factory, we had something like
seven different makes of CNC machine tools,” he says.
“Running the factory was complicated and inefficient. For the
sake of productivity, we had to standardise.”
In 1998, Vallet took a trip to the Paris machine tool
show where, for the first time, he came across Haas CNC
machine tools.
“We found the best machines for our growing company,”
he says. “For a start, all Haas machines have the same