ONE of Worcester's largest employers is to open a new site in Italy.

Yamazaki Mazak, which employs hundreds of people from the city, is expanding its operations with a new laser cutting centre at Cerro Maggiore, near Milan.

The new 800m sq facility features a large showroom with a number of the company's flagship laser-cutting machines in operation.

There is also a clean room for maintenance operations on the delicate optical components of the machines.

The showroom also features a nitrogen generator allowing Mazak engineers to develop new technology in-house.

Gaetano Lo Guzzo, director of laser business Europe at Yamazaki Mazak, said: "Mazak has a rich heritage in the development and delivery of revolutionary laser cutting technologies, and we are looking forward to welcoming laser customers from all over Europe to our new facility.

"It will not only act as fantastic demonstration space, but also play a fundamental role in the overall operational life of many Mazak laser machines – from applications engineering and aftersales support through to the repair and maintenance of critical components.

"Moreover, there is a rapidly growing customer base that deploys both Mazak laser processing machines and Mazak machine tools.

"Having a state-of-the-art facility with unrivalled engineering expertise in both disciplines will therefore be an invaluable resource to many European manufacturers."

Established more than a century ago in Japan, Yamazaki Mazak is one of Worcester's largest employers, with around 500 staff in the city and more than 8,000 worldwide.

It also has 10 production plants and multiple sales subsidiaries worldwide, with 14 of them being in Europe.

In November last year, the company took on 17 new apprentices at its Worcester site, with more than 200 apprentices trained since its scheme began in 2011.

In 2019, the company celebrated its 100th anniversary by taking more than 1,000 employees and their families to Drayton Manor.

The company’s European headquarters and manufacturing site, based in Badgeworth Drive, Worcester, employs more than 500 workers.

The Worcester facility produces more than 1,000 machine tools every year for use by UK machine tool users and also for export to Europe.