Moving forward in a world of unknowns

Chong Chee Ter, Managing Director, TRUMPF Asia Pacific

COVID-19 has just begun to bring massive disruption to many businesses, cities and municipal governments across South East Asia. Manufacturing-industry businesses of all sizes are seeing their revenue fall to virtually zero due to nations self-isolating.

Kathryn Gerardino-Elagio of International Metalworking News for Asia interviewed Mr. Chong Chee Ter, Managing Director of TRUMPF Asia Pacific to see how the company is acting to protect their employees and customers, and prepare for the world beyond coronavirus.

Mr. Chong said that businesses are forced to re-think and adapt strategic decisions in these challenging times. Businesses are implementing staggered working hours, splitting the employees into different teams for minimal contact measure, and to even adopt working from home. “All of which would entail some extend of inconveniences to our customers, an unfortunate albeit necessary measure,” he added.

How technology bridges the gap

He explained, “Technology has always been proven to be a pivotal role not only in our industry, but to the society as a whole as well. Manufacturers have always used technology not only to further enhance the production process, but to also use it as a bridge to be closer to the customers. For instance the usage of Social Media to reach out to our customers as well as complimentary trainings via webinars that allow us to be closer to the market.”

Given the current situation, Mr. Chong described technology has undoubtedly proven itself once again. “With several countries across South East Asia implementing lockdowns, curfews etc. Courtesy visits or sending an engineer to our customer premises is not possible at the moment, that’s where technology comes into play again. Our “Remote Support” function plays a critical role in these challenging times where social distancing and minimal human to human contact is the new norm,” he declared.

Mr. Chong shared, “The existing “remote support or TeleService” function in our machines enable the customer to get in touch with our service experts should they experience any technical issues with the machine. The customer just would have to initiate the connection from their user interface, and a virtual PC is generated for the session. Once it’s done and our service expert has been given the permission to access the user interface, we can begin the troubleshooting. Our customers thus still can benefit from a quick fault diagnosis and solution remotely within the transmission, all data is completely secured with a firewall and confidentiality of data is ensured at each point in time.”

At the same time, he also shared about MyTRUMPF, a customer portal, which remains open to users 24/7. “Our customers have access to their orders and their delivery status, can file and follow up on service cases via the ServiceApp on their mobile phones, download software and tool data as well as access all information about their TRUMPF machines such as warranty periods, service contracts, etc.,” Mr. Chong said.

In-house exhibition

It is also exactly during these difficult times where companies are being tested on their flexibility to adapt to the situation and the willingness to adopt new technologies, Mr. Chong remarked.

“For instance, our annual in-house exhibition “INTECH” has traditionally been a physical trade show, but has since developed into a virtual event where participants can visit the exhibition at the comfort and more importantly, the safety of their own home,” he specified.

Undoubtedly these are challenging times, and it’s not possible to tell when the situation would improve at the moment, Mr. Chong stated. “What we are doing internally now is to continuously serve our customers via digital means, enriching their knowledge on technologies, software and current developments in view of digitalisation and smart lean manufacturing, etc. All of which would definitely be helpful when the situation improves and come out of this crisis stronger and well prepared for future challenges awaiting the manufacturing industry, especially in terms of digital solutions,” he concluded.

Useful Links:

http://edms.industrysourcing.com/ezine/20/06/imna.html?pagenum=16

http://www.industrysourcing.com/article/moving-forward-world-unknowns

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Greenway - The lathe that last

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International Metalworking News for Asia June 2020 issue now LIVE!

When the virus pushed South East Asia’s manufacturing chain into pandemonium, enterprises in all sizes struggle to support production capabilities. Bringing production back is a persisting matter, but this pandemic could serve to make it a priority. International Metalworking News for Asia’s June issue features technical boosters in the form of articles poised to enter into an innovation phase that will help develop new approaches to combat the disruptions in manufacturing and business caused by coronavirus.

READ more: 

Website: http://www.industrysourcing.com/magazine/imna/2020/06

E-zine: http://edms.industrysourcing.com/ezine/20/06/imna.html 

Which CNC thread rolling machine is right for you?

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Helping Manufacturing Customers Minimize COVID-19 Disruption

COVID-19 is affecting each one of us, and the situation continues to evolve. Like all of you, we are determined to respond to the situation with as little disruption as possible.

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Excellent shredding system is key to profitable recycling

By: Kathryn Gerardino-Elagio

Metals have been reused and recycled for centuries – some, possibly for ages. In South East Asia, production and consumption are growing. But the region lacks advanced recycling framework and technology. Although companies are starting to handle recycling, this industry is still very small and processing plants are quickly overwhelmed.

Integration of shredding machines into manufacturing plants in South East Asia is a must in order to produce economically and resource efficiently as possible. For that reason, the recycling of scrap parts and casting residues is becoming increasingly important.

Germany-based recycling system expert Erdwich Zerkleinerungs-Systeme GmbH is looking to South East Asia including India as key areas of growth for its business in the coming years, reveals CEO Mr. Harald Erdwich, in an interview with International Metalworking News for Asia.

Beginning

The company first started as a manufacturer of conveyor belts in 1972 by Mr. Johann Erdwich (senior). In the 1980’s, the core business began changing from conveyor belt manufacturing to crusher systems. CNC driven lathes also started during that period and Erdwich designed and developed single-shaft shredders for metal swarfs treatment which was highly innovative. First units have been sold directly to OPEL in Germany and immediately started business opportunities in the automotive branch with a well-known reputation till today.

Afterwards, a complete product enlargement consisting out of new two-shaft shredders, three-shaft shredders and complete turn-key solutions as well as plants for e-waste treatment and refrigerator recycling have been developed. The main focus was moving to the key issues: recycling, destruction and reprocessing of precious raw materials.

Over the next years, the company Erdwich continuously developed successfully new machines till today and enhanced the already existing product range with new innovative crushers, including improved features for new business fields.

In 2010, the technical centre started with a high variety of crusher availabilities for test customer test samples. In 2017, the complete company moved from Kaufering to the now well-known headquarter in Igling, out of capacity reasons.

Increasing focus on South East Asia

Harald Erdwich stressed that the strategy in South East Asia is now more focused than the years before. Especially future markets like, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia, are the main focus with different strategy aspects by Erdwich.

“Such countries are starting with the recycling issues especially, the governments are changing some rules for the future regarding waste treatment and recycling quotas. Very important customer applications in this case are landfill dismantling, e-waste treatment, refrigerator recycling and cast reprocessing,” he said.

Erdwich has been in the markets of Korea, Japan and Taiwan for decades. Harald detailed, “Just to name two examples, we have already built two refrigerator recycling plants in China and likewise one e-scrap recycling plant.”

Over the last four years, Erdwich has been installing and supporting in cooperation with the ALBA Group the biggest e-facility located in Hong Kong, which was the biggest project realised in the company’s history. “At this very complex plant, the complete e-waste stream from the city of Hong Kong consisting out of dryers, washing machines, refrigerators and further electronic devices are processed here,” he mentioned.

50th anniversary in 2022

According to Harald, the company will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2022. “Till this time a lot has changed. Erdwich have been constantly growing during the last years and has now a factory size of 40 employees and is a middle-sized company, located in Igling,” he shared.

Harald explained that the main focus here is the area of solutions for metal swarfs treatment, automotive industry, die cast reprocessing, cardboard crushing and many more, especially pharmaceutical issues in the near future.

New machines

Erdwich is constantly developing new machines in the last couple of years, in cooperation with the internal R&D department for changed applications and varying market needs. “The big and robust hydraulically driven RM1800/2 was launched for aluminium scrap treatment, landfill dismantling in the Asian market, municipal household waste streams, and a lot more applications,” he remarked.

Furthermore, a new and smaller hammer mill of the type HA600/1 was presented at IFAT exhibition in 2018 with now optimised dimensions for smaller and limited production spaces. The hammer mill is mostly used for swarfs treatment, small electronic device crushing and many more applications.

Harald added, “Also for the metal swarfs branch, Erdwich presented at the AMB exhibition in Stuttgart 2018 the M400/2-400 machine on basis of a single-shaft shredder for wooly and very voluminous metal swarfs treatments, especially for customers in the automotive industry.”

“Moreover, the very compact and heavy M800/1 single-shaft shredder was designed and brought into the market for metal swarfs treatment and higher throughput-rates together with the electro-mechanical driven RM1350/2 especially for cast reprocessing,” he further added.

Harald revealed that the company is looking and organising trainings for constant development of their employees, including further education measures to have a group of experts for each application area in the internal company process.

The time is ripe to design all products and services for the circular economy, and ramp up efforts in recycling. Recycling products that we’re no longer using is always good practice. It can help protect the environment from hazards. With the right shredding system waiting at our fingertips, the future is looking bright and profitable.

E-zine link: http://edms.industrysourcing.com/ezine/20/04/imna.html?pagenum=18

Website link: http://www.industrysourcing.com/article/excellent-shredding-system-key-profitable-recycling