Supplement of ipcm® - International Paint&Coating Magazine n. 77.
In September, ICT was among the 1,816 exhibitors at IMTS - International Manufacturing Technology Show in Chicago, the western hemisphere’s largest and longest-running trade fair on manufacturing and mechanical engineering.
ICT was the only European magazine to be present, representing an industry, that of systems and processes for washing, cleaning, and surface preparation of parts, with a far more comprehensive and sophisticated technological offering than its American equivalent.
It is also more exclusive: vacuum cleaning concepts with modified hydrocarbons or alcohols are the prerogative of European companies alone, many of which have long been collaborating with ICT. American manufacturers only offer water-based cleaning systems, which are far less sophisticated than the multi-stage, robotised water-washing/solvent-drying, cleaning+deburring, or cleaning+impregnation combined lines and spray units integrated in machining centres that we are used to seeing here in Europe, with Italian and German firms dominating the scene (as well as the trade fair’s surface treatment hall).
The European industry, therefore, confirmed to be at the forefront of technology and of customer demands, with plenty of sales and business growth opportunities available to be seized in the North American market.
The investment required to explore this market is certainly burdensome for companies, now even more so, given the escalating prices of air travel and, in general, of everything revolving around business travel. In addition, it is essential to have a person, a network, or a small structure closely follow the market: it is not feasible to manage this from Europe. Nevertheless, we believe that looking west, and not east, can offer more opportunities for our companies.
In the meantime, in this issue of ICT we have collected the most interesting case studies from the past months to present to all visitors of the parts2clean trade fair in Stuttgart, which is going to open its doors to visitors and exhibitors from all over the world on 12 October and once again confirm itself as the world’s most important exhibition for industrial parts cleaning.
We are going to be there – in the media lounge reserved for trade magazines – with a magazine issue full of application examples, innovations, and analyses of the parts cleaning market’s needs.
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