After more than a century in the North American market, the Union Butterfield brand is being retired as Dormer Pramet consolidates its metal cutting tool portfolio under a single global identity.
Dormer Pramet, a leading global manufacturer of metal cutting tools, is officially announcing the upgrade of Union Butterfield (UB) family of products to Dormer Pramet.
July 23, 2024, North America - The move represents a significant shift in how the company approaches the North American market, where Union Butterfield has maintained a loyal customer base across machine shops and manufacturing facilities for generations. Customers will be able to purchase comparable products from the Dormer Pramet family, which offer excellent performance, tool longevity and quality, at comparable price levels.
With this change, Dormer Pramet is strengthening the development of its assortment towards expanding and offering reliable ANSI standard threading tools. The company has already begun this transition, and threading solutions are available for customers in North America at the time of this publication. Rather than maintaining two separate product lines with overlapping capabilities, the strategy allows Dormer Pramet to focus its engineering and manufacturing resources on a unified catalog that serves both domestic and international demand.
Concurrently, by the 31st of December 2024, all products and solutions under the UB brand will be retired with no new items produced within this product family. Dormer Pramet will not re-stock UB products once current inventory is depleted. However, the existing stock will be available for customers to order until the 30th of March 2025. At the end of this period, UB products will no longer be available for purchase from distributors, the e-shop, official catalogs, or other channels. This phased approach gives customers several months to evaluate the Dormer Pramet alternatives and adjust their procurement processes accordingly.
UB is a well-known and respected North American brand with more than 100 years of history supporting manufacturing by providing cutting tools. The brand built its reputation on threading solutions and has been a staple in workshops across the continent. Retiring a name with that kind of legacy is not a decision taken lightly, but the competitive landscape in industrial tooling has shifted considerably. Consolidation allows Dormer Pramet to present a clearer value proposition and avoid the confusion that can arise when two brands under the same parent company compete for the same buyers.
"The industry landscape and Dormer Pramet ambitions dictate that we will transition away from the Union Butterfield brand in the market and step away from this product family and offer our customers an upgrade to Dormer Pramet. This will better position us in the market and achieve sustainable growth, benefiting both our business and our customers." Eduardo Martin, President of Dormer Pramet
For shops that have relied on UB threading tools for decades, the transition should be straightforward. The Dormer Pramet replacements are designed to meet or exceed the specifications of their UB counterparts, meaning operators should not experience a learning curve or a drop in performance during the switch. Pricing continuity is also part of the plan, which removes one of the most common friction points in brand migrations of this nature.
At Dormer Pramet, the commitment extends beyond the product itself. The company aims to be a reliable partner and one of the leading brands in North America, offering technical support and a distribution network that can serve customers efficiently regardless of where they are located. This consolidation is as much about streamlining that support as it is about simplifying the product lineup.
Additional Notes:
Dormer Pramet Website: https://www.dormerpramet.com/
Dormer Pramet Social Media channels: Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram
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D7 MRO group
Issued by:
Dormer Pramet
1483 Dogwood Way
Mebane, NC 27302
For Union Butterfield related inquiries, contact
Osny Fabricio
Director, Sales Area Americas
[email protected]
Notes to editors: Dormer Pramet is a global manufacturer and supplier of tools for the metal cutting industry. Its comprehensive product program encompasses both rotary and indexable drilling, milling, threading and turning tools for use in a wide variety of production environments. An extensive sales and technical support service operate from 20 offices, serving more than 100 markets worldwide. These are assisted by dedicated production facilities in Europe, Americas and Asia, along with a highly developed distribution and logistics network.