For the high-performance laser, a decisive development took place in Great Britain in 1967. Messer Griesheim, a German machine manufacturer; Coherent, a beam source manufacturer from the USA; and the Welding Institute, a UK based research institute, collaborated to develop a laser for a new industrial process: cutting metal sheets. This model of the development alliance is typical in the laser industry today. Dr. Hans-Josef Haepp, former manager of Production and Materials Technology at Daimler AG in Sindelfingen, Germany, sees in it the essential model for the successful breakthrough of the laser in industrial production that took place in Germany at the beginning of the 1980s. As an example, he describes the development of welding applications in car body construction at Daimler. "The Institute for Laser Tools presented extensive findings on the interchange of photons with metallic materials as well as on process monitoring. TRUMPF implemented this process in systems suitable for industrial applications that Daimler AG tested early on for usability. The findings gained from this testing were available to all partners and were used specifically to further develop the technology."

The development partners from 1967 found the laser promised considerably better cutting quality compared to other processes. In addition, laser cutting had the potential to tap into a growing market as a standard industrial application. Since the early 60's, machines like the copy nibble machine from TRUMPF have revolutionized industrial sheet metal processing and created a new market on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The copy nibbler and later, the NC machine, enabled the production of free contours using an automatically controlled process. At the same time, they were affordable even for small companies, contracted as job shops, to process metal sheet with industrial precision. The first laser cutting machine went into operation at a job shop in Birmingham in the UK. But this was a special laser machine.

Major machine manufacturers like Messer Griesheim became integrators partly with their own lasers and made the new tool available for its customers in the early years. Others focused on obtaining special knowledge and skills based on the application. Jürgen Held of Held Systems was one of the first of the latter. "We thrive on building machines that not everyone can build or that are so specialized that they're needed by only a few. Right from the start, the laser offered extraordinary opportunities in both directions," he said. Building laser machines began to develop as a business model. Encouraged by this, laser integrating companies spurred the company on. During the 1970s, technical knowledge and skills advanced. At the same time, with the increasing use of the laser, business applications calling for technical components for beam generation and guiding and controlling the laser light grew.

At the end of the 70's, cutting metal sheets in this way was shaped into an industrial process. Time became ripe for a standard machine. In Germany TRUMPF was already experimenting with an imported CO₂ laser, but it was beat to the punch in 1978 by the American competitor Strippit that had presented its first laser cutting machine at the IMTS in the USA. TRUMPF followed in the fall of 1979 with its first punching laser combination machine, which provided the market with flexible sheet metal processing. Customers should not see it as a high-tech dream, but rather a trusted machine. It is also one that has added value: a tool made of light that cuts freely-programmable contours via an NC controller.

But Siemens installed the first machine in a lab environment, not in normal sheet metal processing facility. In search of a job shop as additional reference customers, Prof. Berthold Leibinger, Chairman of the Managing Board at that time, negotiated with Heidelberg job shop Autz + Hermann. Helmut Autz was immediately interested. His colleagues, on the other hand, had their doubts. They observed how careful the operators at Siemens handled the machines and were sure that such a machine would never run in a shop or on the production floor. The sales pitch that eventually won out was: "Of course, you can wait for better machines. And naturally better machines will come. But until then, those companies that earn the jobs will be the ones who decide now to work with these machines." For the former "engineer's toy," the laser embarked on a bold career as a tool that added a competitive edge. Expanding laser cutting into standard uses as machine tools was as significant for the evolution of the high performance laser as Ford's Model-T was for the automobile.