Tube and Wire Fair in Düsseldorf offers unparalleled opportunities to identify new technologies and trends 28 May 2012 Successful companies do not exist in a vacuum. “It is important, from a customer service perspective, to keep up to date with current technologies and trends,” says First Cut’s Capital Equipment Director, Steve van Wyk. First Cut has built a solid foundation by developing its relationship with reputable global suppliers of capital equipment and consumables. “In order to remain competitive and nurture our existing supplier relationships, we regularly visit international trade shows,” says Van Wyk. Van Wyk, together with First Cut Managing Director Andrew Poole, visited the Tube and Wire trade exhibition in Düsseldorf recently. “This is the number one trade fair for the wire and tube industry, where technology highlights are presented in the exhibition halls situated along the picturesque Rhine River. The fair presents the complete spectrum from pipe and tube production to processing, raw materials, new and second-hand machinery,” says Van Wyk. Tube and Wire, occupying 57 000 m2 of exhibition space, showcases the product offerings of 2 480 exhibitors from 45 countries. “The exhibition is enormous; it took us three days to visit existing and potential suppliers, and investigate new technologies. The fair gave us an unequalled opportunity to look into the latest technology, pertinent to our customer base, in one venue,” says Van Wyk. “In addition to a wealth of global offerings, a South African exhibition stand, with Macsteel, Robor and Hall Longmore in attendance, provided visitors with the opportunity to see the strides South Africa is making in the market,” Van Wyk adds. “All of our key agencies were present at Tube and Wire, namely Crippa, Sacma, Blecher, Jaufasa, Julia, Kanefusa, Mille Miglia, Muller Opladen, Olimpia 80, Swarze Robitec, Tube Tech, Birlik Makina and Wikus. Each one had innovative booths where we were exposed to new products and were able to interact with the various technical and sales teams. It was an amazing opportunity to touch base with so many agencies in one place and, at the same time, identify new complementary value added potential suppliers,” says Van Wyk. Van Wyk says that a new record was achieved at this year’s Tube & Wire show with approximately 70 000 visitors from over 100 countries passing through the doors. “The halls were laid out according to specific themes so that visitors could easily plan their routes. First Cut chose to focus on the value-added areas of forming technology, tube processing machines and new blade innovations. We look forward to sharing the knowledge we have gained and information we have gathered from Tube and Wire 2012, with our customers, in our quest to improve their productivity levels and return-on-investment.” |
