Exhibitions: Vitrum’s return to form.

The 14th Vitrum exhibition for glass processing has delivered a 22 per cent rise in visitors. Fewer made the trip to Milan from the UK and Ireland though, which bodes well for GP&T 2007,

The Vitrum trade fair produced something of a return to form in October, attracting a reported 16,018 visitors – close to the record 16,702 figure of 1999. This marked improvement on the lacklustre June 2003 event was thanks to an additional 2,000 Italian visitors and 1,000 visitors from the rest of the world – a record 94 countries. The number of UK visitors, 193 against 217 in 2003, confirms that Vitrum won’t dent attendance to the British Glass Processing & Technology (GP&T) exhibition, which next takes place shortly after Vitrum in Autumn 2007. Irish visitors were down too this year.

The European stage

International exhibitions such as Vitrum expose visitors to different ideas and approaches. Steve Goble is Managing Director of Hegla UK, subsidiary of the German cutting and handling machinery specialist (tel. 01908 261933, www.hegla.de). He says that high volume laminate cutting tables are Germany’s answer to toughening furnaces, because of the continental preference for laminated safety glass rather than our toughened. Laminated glass is going to become more important in the UK, especially for conservatory roofs, and Hegla UK announced further sales of its combination float / laminate cutting table at Vitrum.

CE marking is a hot topic for processors to consider: Product standards for Toughened glass and Heat strengthened glass were applicable from 1st September. Further hENs for Insulated glass, Fire and Laminated products will come into effect in March 2006.

All products sold in EU countries must demonstrate conformity, but it is not mandatory to display the CE mark in the UK, Ireland, Sweden or Finland. Imports will have the competitive edge.

Vitrum is chiefly a machinery show, although the ‘Glass in Art and Technology’ area in Hall 15/II was given over to displays of some new glass types. Guardian’s ShowerGuard is described as ‘the industry’s first permanent, temperable shower glass protection product.’ It carries a 10 year warranty and requires no edge deletion (www.guardian.com). Omnidecor’s Decorflou EasyClean is a thick hydrophobic satin finish glass (see www.omnidecor.net).

Decorative products is one area where the British companies shine. Regalead (tel. 0161 946 1164, www.regalead.co.uk) was exhibiting on the stand of Italian agent Neostucco. ‘The main reason why we come to Vitrum is to meet our international customers’, said Guy Hubble, Sales Director.

Additions to the range of 3M Accentrim decorative tapes were shown, including one that gives a twin bevel effect. ‘We’re going for this on conservatories’, added Guy Hubble. ‘You can be decorative without losing light.’

Neostucco expects Regalead’s fused glass tiles to do well in the the Italian market, particularly for enhancing glass doors.

‘GP&T is for Brits. We’re hoping to get more overseas customers here.’ said Stephen Hart of North Western Lead (tel. 0161 368 4491, www.decraled.com). NWL’s two-toned Dichroic bevels are proving popular for doors in parts of Eastern Euope and Russia, and one of the intentions of doing Vitrum was to develop more partners in these regions.

Faster tempering

Faster tempering of low E glass types was announced by safety glass machinery specialists Tamglass and Glassrobots against the growing presence of alternatives from the Far East.

Sonic is the new Tamglass high speed convection tempering furnace, which achieves a world record processing performance of 33 seconds per millimetre for Super Low E glass (see www.tamglass. com). Sonic could be seen in Hall 14, and customers can see it in operation at the Tamglass factory in Tampere, Finland. Not to be outdone, Glassrobots has equally impressive figures for its RoboTemp furnace (www.glassrobots.fi).

Uniglass is the third tempering furnace manufacturer to be located in Tampere, Finland. Now part of the Glaston Technologies group along with Tamglass, Uniglass is now represented in the UK by Peter Hawkins Ltd (tel. 01332 864747). Interestingly, it offers a model for the plasma screen market.

As always, Glaston’s presentation was impressive. Tamglass and partner Bavelloni’s business areas and sales teams were unified on 1st January this year, and the pair’s ‘One Stop Partner’ approach continues to result in growth in sales and order book. Tamglass’ factory in China will be operational by February and it is hoped that GPD China will help to develop the Chinese market.

To be too close to Vitrum or Glasstec is not advisable.” Renata Gaffo, Vitrum Director

Bystronic announced a partnership with Chinese machinery manufacturer Landglass at the beginning of this year. Bystronic UK expects to make its first installation of a Landglass bending and tempering furnace in 2006.

Processing advances

With so many standard parts in use in processing machinery, there can sometimes be little to choose from between different manufacturers.

‘We’ve got to assume that service does play an important part in sales’, says Phil Beddows of Bottero’s UK subsidiary, which employs six service engineers. Liverpool processor Tuffx decided to purchase a Bottero shape edging machine at Vitrum.

The Italian company’s new automatic drilling and routing machine can select from 32 different tools. Another new Bottero product was the Spartacus high speed cutting table (tel. 01706 655440, www.bottero.com).

Intermac has a patent pending on its eight position rotary tool change facility, which cuts the change time from 25 seconds to just nine.

This facility will be available on all CNC centres except the Master 23, the new model with a smaller (2 metre by 3m) bed size (tel. 01327 307311, www.intermac.com).

Fairs in competition

Over half the floorspace at Vitrum – more than 14,000 square metres – is taken up by the members of GIMAV, the Italian Glass Processing Machinery and Accessory Suppliers’ Association.

At Vitrum, GIMAV and Vitrum Director Renata Gaffo confirmed GIMAV’s commitment to Glasstec and Vitrum as the two most important shows in Europe:

‘It is GIMAV’s policy to be present as a group association at the most important trade fairs, and in Europe these are the two most important shows. To be too close to Vitrum or Glasstec is not advisable.’

GIMAV supports various shows. However, trade fairs too close to Vitrum geographically or on the calendar won’t be supported for reasons of competition and logistics. A case in point is Glassbuild America, which moved to September to compete with InterGlassMetal. GIMAV halved its exhibition space at Glassbuild to 800 square metres.

A similar situation might be played out in the UK in 2007. The possiblility of a GIMAV contingent at GP&T now looks out of the question, and UK machinery agents might get less support from their Italian suppliers. We can expect more coffee bar-style stands and fewer machines at the NEC.

New venue for 2007

For its next edition,Vitrum will move to the new Fiera Milano Rho-Pero complex near Milan’s Malpensa airport. Vitrum will occupy two 15,000 square metre halls at the new venue and floorspace prices will be the same, in line with GIMAV’s policy not to increase prices whenever possible.