In 1962, the French government created CTDEC, a research and training center primarily devoted to screw machining, in France’s Haute-Savoie region, located right across the border from Geneva, Switzerland. Comprised of 630 member companies, CTDEC has an annual budget of 6.3 million euros, and contains 6,600 square meters of laboratories and workshops.
One of the most interesting resources at the CTDEC is its advanced diagnostic center used to identify part defects. It contains an extremely powerful microscope that can magnify objects tens of thousands of times. It has the strength to see inside an ant’s eye and can surpass that magnification quantity exponentially. CTDEC charges 90 euros per hour for companies to use services such as this one, and non-member companies from around the world are allowed to use the facilities services for the same fee.
