Suppliers and buyers to gather in Stuttgart

Related Vendors

DIPROFIL Diamantprodukter AB

Ramada Acos

Landesmesse Stuttgart GmbH

Personal meetings and discussions

Professor Robert Fieten: "A trade fair such as Moulding Expo lives from the fact that suppliers and buyers from home and abroad meet one another and carry out initial matchmaking. The guided tours of the trade fair will help to ensure that this actually happens. They will show the buyers where it is worthwhile to make specific follow-up efforts again." The focal points of the tour of the trade fair will therefore be personal meetings and discussions. "Buyers are regularly interchanged in many companies," said Dürrwächter. According to him, tool and mould makers are therefore often uncertain as to whether a concluded contract can be renewed in the following year. Dürrwächter: "We also want to show the buyers that they can always find in the VDWF the competent contact persons for arranging partners in our industry."

The 6th BME Forum will have different topics on the two days. The first day of the Forum (6 May 2015) will be aimed at buyers of punching, bending and forming tools, and on the second day (7 May 2015) at buyers of tools for plastic injection moulding parts. The Forum will look at the challenge for the buyer to find the best tool suppliers throughout the world and agree the right prices with these suppliers.

Some tool and mould manufacturers complain that this frequently leads to painful prices and long payment targets. Professor Fieten: "The tool maker market is very segmented. Unfortunately too much importance is attached to the price in contract award decisions. I have long demanded an extended total cost analysis. However, I cannot see any unfair contracts everywhere. It is important for balanced contracts that tool makers regard themselves as a problem-solving partner for the industry and empathise with the processes of their customers," said Fielen.

Graf Zedtwitz refers in this respect to the VDMA Delivery Terms which set a fair standard for purchasing: "The VDMA Tool Manufacturing Association provides everyone with industry-specific regulations free of charge on its website."

On account of rapid technical developments, however, tool and mould makers want buyers to understand what can be implemented in technically meaningful and economic terms. Fieten: "Buyers need not be tool makers. However, they must possess technical knowledge and obtain information from their colleagues in production and design prior to discussions with tool makers."

The BME Forum will feature a number of first-class speakers, including Bettina Planegger from Daimler AG, Sinasi Oezen from Robert Bosch GmbH and Chris Groger from Carl Zeiss SMT GmbH. However, Professor Thomas Seul, President of the VDWF and Vice-Rector of Schmalkaldenwird University of Applied Sciences, will talk about German tool manufacturing as an innovation leader in global competition, developments on the market, the challenges in tool purchasing and the success strategies in this respect.

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