| IST VISITS |
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| Wednesday, 19 August 2009 09:54 |
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Andrew Watkinson, Managing Director and Mark Hayes, Senior Metallurgist have been visiting countries around the world to promote IST. TURKEY Andrew Watkinson visited Turkey between 14th and 18th December 2008, whereby he visited several companies, Members and Non-Members, giving information regarding IST, along with full presentations of IST's products and services. SWITZERLAND Andrew Watkinson visited Baumann Federn AG in Switzerland to discuss the full "Baumann Group" coming into Membership of the Institute, which has been achieved. INDIA Andrew Watkinson visited India between 31st January and 9th February 2009, visiting Chennai, Tamil Nadu, Bangalore, Pune, Thane and Mumbai. In total Andrew visited 20 companies, Members and Non-Members, giving information and presentations on IST and our Products and Services. The summary of the visit was that IST were well received in just about all of companies visited, and the Indian companies were prepared to listen to our service presentations. It was noticeable than many more companies were looking at nickel base materials than 14 months previously. Effectively our services are becoming more interesting as the complexity of the Indian products increases. Software, training courses and failure investigation services seem to be of most interest to Indian springmakers. Forty one company visits have now been made by Andrew Watkinson in two trips to India, and Mark Hayes has provided three multi client training courses, a small number of site visits and a number of private training courses, and three trade show stands - our continued presence is keeping the Indian membership growing slowly, but steadily, despite the threat of recession. The Indian market is a mixture of longer established basic springmakers, and newer more advanced (often joint venture) plants originally set up with external help, but now running without external partners. Indians are still optimistic that the market will continue to grow albeit slowly, rather than contracting, although there is some concern over whether this is about to change. Several companies were in the process of installing new equipment, moving factories and making extensions, all of which indicates that Indian companies are investing in the future, rather than expecting to shrink. CHINA Mark Hayes visited China week commencing 14th April 2009 and gave two courses on Material Properties, Spring Manufacturing, Spring Design and CAD software, as well as introducing IST's Products and Services. The first was given in Shanghai and the second in Dong Guan, both were attended by over 100 delegates. The reaction to the courses were positive and the view expressed was that this should become an annual event. IST's Chinese agent, Zhou Wei of Wintime, is very positive that there will be sales arising from the visit. |