Sold Out Fakuma Trade Fair Attracts the Global Plastics Industry

Our commercial team took a trip to Friedrichshafen, Germany for the Fakuma Trade Fair, held Oct. 13-17 at the Friedrichshafen Exhibition Centre. Show officials announced before Fakuma’s start that all available exhibition space had been sold out starting in February of this year. The show is held twice every three years and takes a break in years that the K show is held. Perhaps the heavy visitor traffic could be attributed in part to the fact that K show will be held in October of 2016, meaning Fakuma will take a year off.

The exhibitors were of every shape and size as it relates to the plastics industry. We visited with resin producers, equipment companies, 3D printer firms and even some color suppliers. The halls were humming with plastics production equipment and the aisles stayed busy throughout our 2 day stay. It depended who you talked to as to the stream of visitors to their booths, but the majority of exhibitors were well pleased with the attendance.

As you might expect, there was quite a bit of buzz about the K show happening next year although it contrasts with Fakuma in several respects. Friedrichshafen is far from any urban area while K is held in the much more metropolitan Dusseldorf with its population of 11 million people. Though most will attend K, many said that, despite its size, Fakuma feels more like a family production, which makes sense as the Schall family has produced Fakuma for many years.

Many of the new products we saw were for the automotive industry, where lightweighting and emission reduction is of the utmost importance. Some lightweighting is achieved through specialty plastics compounds. Since plastic is lighter than metal, the focus is around trying to get plastic as close as you can in physical properties to metals. This will continue to benefit the companies that can produce products that work in this industry. Regarding emissions, manufacturers are even concerned with the interior atmosphere of the car in addition to external emissions.

We had many good meetings with our customers and, as we discovered last year, there are many industries present that could benefit from Americhem products and technologies. We’ll look forward to 2017 with the optimism shared by most in this important industry event.

Andreas Weller

Key Account Manager, Americhem Inc.

Thomas Weigl

VP and Managing Director EMEA, Americhem Inc.

An Insider's Perspective On NPE

Doug Croley, National Account Manager-Packaging, has worked for Americhem for 43 years. During this time, Doug has worked at every single NPE booth that we have ever had. The 2015 show marked Doug’s 10th NPE, giving him a unique perspective on the event itself and Americhem’s participation. We asked Doug to reflect on NPE and his experiences.

Americhem's very first NPE exhibition in 1988, Chicago, IL.
From left to right: Doug Croley, Frank Fire and Bob Platt.

Americhem had its first booth at NPE in 1988. Frank Fire, Americhem’s vice president of sales and marketing, was in charge of the booth, which was small -- maybe 10 ft. by 12 ft. if I remember correctly. Not only was this our first NPE show, this was Americhem’s first time ever exhibiting at a trade show of any kind. As such, we didn’t think about previewing every detail of the booth before it was shipped to Chicago. So when we arrived at the booth the day prior to the show, Frank was mortified to see that the 3D lettering of the word “Americhem” was made entirely of wood. How could a plastics company exhibiting at a plastics show have wooden letters? Frank protested vigorously, but in the end, it was too late to fabricate plastic letters and the show went on. This was a lesson we would never forget.

During our second NPE in 1991, our booth featured a clear plexiglass pyramid with a hair dryer mounted at its base. We displayed our colored masterbatch pellets in the pyramid, and the blow dryer kept them in motion throughout the show, which grabbed a lot of visitors’ attention. But then, as the second day of the show was progressing, the heat from the hair dryer began fusing the pellets together, creating a mess and ruining the desired effect. To solve the issue, we had a new shipment of pellets sent to us from our Cuyahoga Falls plant so we could change out the pellets. This continued every day for the rest of the show and we had learned another valuable lesson.

Back in those days, NPE was dominated by resin suppliers like Dow, DuPont and GE Plastics featuring massive booths with multi-million dollar budgets. As the show progressed and grew, more people started attending and all of the booths started to look much more professional. Those visitors to the shows in the late 80’s and 90’s could really get a workout at Chicago’s McCormick Place. I remember it being said that if you walked every aisle of the show, you would amass 14 miles of walking, and you felt every step!

The biggest booth we ever had was in 2000, when we had a double deck meeting room structure with four conference rooms. This was also our biggest booth in terms of floor space (30 ft. by 90 ft.) I remember we chartered a sightseeing boat on Lake Michigan in the evening during a couple of shows. We entertained customers on board and had a great view of the Chicago skyline at night. One year, there were fireworks along the shore and I remember the captain backing up so we were almost exactly underneath them.

So how has the show changed over the years? Well, there are a lot less mega-booths by resin suppliers. Our sales cycle was much quicker years ago due to easier approval processes and conversion costs. The switch to Orlando as the venue for the show has enabled companies to take a more active part in building and modifying their booths. In Chicago, if we wanted to move a flower pot or straighten a graphic, we had to have one of McCormick Place’s union laborers do it for us.

What has remained consistent is the enthusiasm and hard work of the Americhem booth staff. Everybody puts their game face on when it’s time to work the booth, but it doesn't prevent us from having fun. Some of the best parts of the experience are meeting with customers after the show and getting to know them as people over dinner. NPE has also been a great time for Americhem commercial staff from around the world to meet face-to-face with one another to exchange ideas and promote comradery.

The ten shows I’ve been a part of have been great experiences and very rewarding for Americhem. I’m looking forward to working at least one more NPE, and even though it’s years away, there’s no extravaganza quite like it.

Buzzing About NPE2015

It’s almost here: NPE2015. In just a few short weeks (or 34 days, but who’s counting?), the largest plastics show in North America will kick off in Orlando, Fla. Since the show is only held every three years, significant changes happen to the global economy and to the plastics industry between shows. In 2009 the show was characterized by declining attendance and fewer exhibitors at the height of the global economic crisis, while the 2012 show was upbeat with the recovering economy and a new show location (Orlando), Everyone is buzzing about the prediction of a  robust and exciting show in 2015.

Americhem has proudly exhibited at every NPE since 1988 – so NPE2015 will be our tenth show as an exhibitor. We even have an employee, national account manager Doug Croley, who has worked at every single Americhem booth since that time. Congratulations, Doug, on your upcoming 10^th show.

The show takes place at a time of steady growth in the economy. Manufacturing in the U.S. is strong. 2014 witnessed the best performance from U.S. factories since 2010. Pundits predict that U.S. factories will outpace foreign plants since oil prices are falling and domestic job growth has boosted consumer spending. Favorable raw material costs seem to be benefitting companies at almost every link in the supply chain.

In fact, plastics industry insiders, like Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI) President Bill Carteaux have stated that falling gas prices have “made U.S. plastics a competitive industry.”  We’re excited about the prospects of a great NPE show and look forward to hosting lots of customers and other visitors at our booth 24027 in the South Hall.

This year’s NPE has lots of special pavilions including NPE3D, which NPE is billing as a “show within a show.” This pavilion will feature everything you ever wanted to know about 3D printing, including a wide variety of working 3D equipment. Americhem has been working in this industry for some time now, and we will also feature a working 3D printer demonstration in our own booth.

The Zero Waste Zone will teach visitors how the industry is recycling, processing and using them in new products. The zone will also have demonstrations as well as a display of products created from recycled materials. It will also feature a self-directed educational tour conveying the recycling value chain and process.

Americhem is excited about all the possibilities this year’s show represents for our company and for our industry. The plastics industry is the U.S.’s third biggest manufacturing industry and we’re proud that it is going strong after all these decades. NPE will be a great place to celebrate and grow.

Annual Surfaces Trade Show Sees Optimism in the Flooring Industry

In order to understand the consumer carpet marketplace and to stay on top of trends there, it’s an annual tradition for our Carpet & Turf commercial team to visit the Surfaces tradeshow, held in Las Vegas, to gain insight into how our products are promoted throughout the supply chain. This year, we walked the aisles and greeted many customers, industry insiders and experts in our pursuit of the deepest insight into consumer carpet market.

Invista has gained market momentum with their Stainmaster Pet Protect® brand carpet fiber, constructed of nylon 6,6. Americhem colorant is used in 100% of these yarns, which tout stain resistance for acid based stains -- in particular pet urine, feces and vomit (also known in the industry as the three P’s – you get extra credit if you can figure that one out!).  The brand was evident throughout the show, with clever paw print-branded Pet Protect logos at various carpet manufacturers displays.

We met with Industry analysts to give us a sense for the residential and commercial carpet market in 2015. They believe that flooring will grow in the range of four to five percent in 2015 and carpeting will show slight growth of around 1.5% over 2014.

EngineeredFloors had one of the show’s larger booths and used it to promote their Dream Weaver brand. Dream Weaver’s “soft nylon” technology was evident throughout the booth, and the product’s ultra-soft feel is achieved using very fine denier nylon fibers usually reserved for apparel.  Engineered Floors used the familiar analogy of the carrot (for solution dyed fiber) and the radish (for post dyed fiber) to illustrate why the solution dye advantage is so important.

Foss introduced their commercial line of nonwoven carpet tiles, called SmartTransformations. The tile is made up of solution dyed, recycled PET containing an antimicrobial additive. Phenix Carpet, introduced many novel products including a carpet line using a barber pole twist of varying colors of yarn, interspersed with solution dye and post dyed fiber. Phenix’ vice president of product & marketing development Susan Curtis spoke with us and shared the most recent trends, including multiple colors being used in the carpet design.

There were a lot of hard surface floor producers making a strong showing, and luxury vinyl tile is definitely gaining market share. We’re fortunate to have so many carpet manufacturers that are also advocates of solution dye technology  in the industry. Final attendance numbers aren’t in, but we noticed an increase in the number of attendees as compared to 2013 and 2014. Ironically, one of Americhem’s other business teams, our architecture group, was in town for the InternationalBuilders Show, North America’s largest tradeshow for the building and construction industries. We’re grateful for all of our customers, and it was nice to have so many gathered in one city at one time.

Contributors:

John Deignan, President, Americhem Inc.

Matthew Miklos, Vice President & General Manager, Commercial – Americas, Americhem Inc.

Mark Downey, Sales Director, Carpet & Turf, Americhem Inc.

Dr. Vaman G. Kulkarni, Global Business Development Director, Americhem Inc.

IBS 2015 Exceeds Expectations

Each year, Americhem’s Architecture business team visits the International Builder’s Show (IBS), held annually at the alternating venues of the Las Vegas Convention Center and the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando.

This year’s show in Las Vegas has been encouraging to everyone in our delegation. Traffic and exhibitors are both on the rise and the halls are as busy as we’ve seen them for the past several years. The building and construction market is improving, and even though it was one of the last industries to come back to its pre-recession levels, all of the exhibitors here seem bullish on the future.

We’ve visited each of our customer’s displays and many more. Each and every customer we've talked to said that business at this show has been great. The show also takes up much more real estate this year. There are three full exhibition halls and some outside exhibits. Shows in the recent past struggled to fill one and a half halls. The booths of many of the major suppliers are also bigger this year. Another factor in the show’s growth is the addition of the Kitchen & Bath Industry Show which is co-located with IBS.

We didn’t notice a lot of new products amongst the exhibits, although one of our customers was launching a new PVC deck board which looks to our team like the best impression of natural wood to date in a PVC board. During day one of the show on Tuesday, one of our customers said that there were so many people in their booth that you couldn’t move and today was just as packed. Even the monorail on the Las Vegas strip was so full that we had to take a cab to the show this morning.

We had several people making their first visit to the show and they’re first impressions were interesting. Account manager Stefanie Holtham said, “Of all the trade shows I’ve ever been to, this was the most informative. It’s a great place to learn about the building and construction industry.” Account manager Mark Juve liked the professionalism of the booth displays, many of them containing interactive elements. Companies like Ply Gem invested heavily in their displays and Ply Gem’s booth appeared to be the largest booth in the IBS portion of the exhibition.

We were pleased to see our customers’ products that displayed Americhem technology – even the deck on one of the model homes outside featured color and additive solutions from Americhem. If this week’s show is any indication, the building and construction industry appears poised for a great comeback in 2015.

Mike Fair

Market Segment Manager, Architecture, Americhem Inc.