AGIE CHARMILLES History
The story of AGIE CHARMILLES is the story of electrical discharge machining itself. For over seven decades, the two Swiss companies that would eventually bear this name together were not merely participants in the EDM industry — they invented it, shaped it, and led it. From the workshops of Geneva and the Ticino valley to manufacturing facilities on four continents, AGIE CHARMILLES has remained at the frontier of precision machining.
2025 — A New Swiss Powerhouse
The UNITED GRINDING Group acquires the GF Machining Solutions Division of Georg Fischer AG. Effective 1 July, the combined entity is renamed UNITED MACHINING SOLUTIONS, retaining its headquarters in Bern, Switzerland. GF Machining Solutions becomes UNITED MACHINING — the division under which AGIE CHARMILLES, CHARMILLES, MIKRON MILL, LIECHTI, STEP TEC and SYSTEM 3R operate. With total sales of over USD 1.5 billion and around 5,000 employees at over 50 global locations, UNITED MACHINING SOLUTIONS becomes one of the largest machine tool manufacturers in the world.
2014 – 2007 One Group, One Vision
Effective 1 July 2007, AGIE CHARMILLES integrates the Mikron brand under the unified identity GF AgieCharmilles, combining world-class expertise in EDM and high-speed milling within a single global organisation. On 1 January 2014, GF AgieCharmilles is renamed GF Machining Solutions, signalling a broadened identity beyond machine tool supply. AGIE CHARMILLES continues as the flagship EDM product brand within the portfolio.
1999 – 1996 — The World Leader in EDM Is Born
Georg Fischer acquires a majority shareholding in AGIE SA, Losone in 1996. The two market leaders are brought together under a common holding structure — Agie Charmilles Holding AG, headquartered in Zug — creating the world's leading EDM group. The AGIE CHARMILLES name is born. By 1999, the joint ventures established by AGIE (1991) and Charmilles (1995) are consolidated into the Beijing-based Agie Charmilles Industrial Electronics Ltd., and AGIE CHARMILLES enters the Latin American market through the acquisition of manufacturing rights from Brazil's Engemaq.
1991 – 1983 — Strategic Expansion
In 1983, Georg Fischer AG acquires a 51% stake in Ateliers des Charmilles in Geneva, renaming the entity Charmilles Technologies SA — the beginning of a strategic alliance between a major Swiss industrial group and the world's leading EDM innovator. Georg Fischer completes the full acquisition in 1988. In 1991, AGIE establishes a joint venture in China, among the first European precision machine tool manufacturers to enter the Chinese market.
1970 – 1963 — The Age of Programmable Precision
In 1963, AGIE launches the AGIETRON BF, its first transistorised generator, while Charmilles introduces the Isopulse generator — delivering constant, homogenous energy to the electrode, dramatically reducing electrode wear and raising surface quality to new standards. Towards the end of the decade, an AGIE engineer encounters a Soviet wire-cutting machine at a Moscow exhibition and returns to Losone with the determination to build something far superior: a numerically controlled machine capable of cutting highly accurate shapes with minimum human supervision. The result is the DEM 15, launched in 1970 — the first wire-cutting EDM machine with full numerical control via punched tape, replacing mechanical templates and opening the door to genuinely programmable precision contour cutting.
1957 – 1954 — The Spark That Started Everything
In April 1954, AGIE is established in Basel, Switzerland. In the same year, the Charmilles team presents the ELERODA D1 — the world's first industrial die-sinking EDM machine — at the European Machine Tool Exhibition in Milan. AGIE follows with the AGIETRON AZ4, featuring a pneumatic servomotor on the Z-axis. Two Swiss companies. One shared vision. By 1957, both companies have introduced the first wire-cutting EDM machines, extending the reach of electrical discharge machining to precise contour cutting that will transform tool and mould making worldwide.
1896 — The Origins
Piccard & Pictet SA is established in Geneva — the enterprise that will one day evolve into Ateliers des Charmilles, laying the commercial and technical foundations for one of the world's great precision engineering companies.