THE-SPPOT.COM NEWS

During the two festive days more than 180 people got part of intensive program of presentations, panel discussions and real-time technical demonstrations. At the Eurotherm’s premises in Turin, Italy we got together OEMs and suppliers in the bike and sporting goods industries, job coaters and innovators to meet and discuss business opportunities and to get a fist-hand experience on the latest technologies and equipment for surface finishing.

 The event had a busy program, combining conference: Manufacturing is coming home in the morning and real-time demonstrations of technologies in the afternoon. All started with a welcome note of the host and Eurotherm CEO Paolo Ghiazza, followed by a detailed presentation of the sppot ecosystem, its goals, its projects, and its events by Yavor Peshev, sppot’s CEO, and with an analysis of the impact of Industry 4.0 in the finishing field by Darren Bond, Eurotherm’s foreign sales manager.

The event went on with two panel discussions involving several speakers from the industry and technical experts around two main topics: Re-shoring and the future of manufacturing in Europe; Circularity and the importance of human factor for a premium finishing process.

 The afternoon session were real time technical demonstrations; after lunch and after a short tour of Eurotherm facility, guests from the industry were able to see practical demonstrations of finishing processes and to troubleshoot any kind of trouble they may face during their daily finishing activities.

 Chairman of the event was Alessia Venturi, the editor in chief of ipcm®_International Paint&Coating Magazine, the only international and globally distributed trade journal in the field of painting, powder coating and surface finishing in general delivering high quality information to OEMs and job coaters.

 Manufacturing ecosystems: The future of manufacturing in Europe

Re-shoring is the opposite of off-shoring and is an economic phenomenon that consists in the return home of companies that had previously relocated production outside Europe, mainly to Asian countries such as China.

With the pandemic and then, from 2022, with the war between Russia and Ukraine, re-shoring was dictated by simple economic factors. Already with the coronavirus, the need to rethink reshoring strategies had forcefully emerged. In the first half of 2020, many companies were forced to create recovery plans to make up for the shortages of materials from factories located in areas affected by the spread of the pandemic before their own. This created the need to completely rework local supply chains.

The goal of this open discussion at GET TECHNICAL 2023 was to understand the opportunities and threats companies which manufacture in Europe are facing. All the good reasons to set a production in Europe, related to ESG and common standards, high and stable quality, shared values were analysed together with supplier of components for bike production, OEMs and Innovators.

The first panel discussion of the day was preceded by a video from CONEBI - the European association of the Bicycle, E-Bike and Parts & Accessories Industries – about the European Cycling Declaration. The proposal for a European Declaration on Cycling recognises cycling as a sustainable, accessible and inclusive, affordable and healthy means of transport, with strong added value for the EU economy.

Participants to the panel discussion about The Future of Manufacturing in Europe were Anton Nastev, founder of Cycle Gets alloy bike frame manufacturer; Kostadin Kichev, Head of R&D Department at BOSCH Bulgaria; Viktor Mitkov, and Niki Videnov from Maxcom, a European bicycle manufacture since 1996, Nicolo Andrina, Alpek Srl., Andrea Magni & Mattia Losa, VML.

Circularity. The Human factor and product developments.

The goal of the second open discussion of the event was to discuss the importance of the human factor as a key aspect of the quality standards in the changing technological practices within the European productive ecosystems. Circularity is a process with increasing importance for the European economy. It is a perception, a strategic approach for longer life cycles of products, any products. What the sppot wanted to state during the panel discussion about circularity was that the longevity of a product starts at the production line and in particular at the surface finishing shop: efficient pre-treatment, qualified employees and technicians on the line, strict quality control from the start to the very end of a surface finishing process.

During the discussion, technical experts told the audience what are the most common mistake on a painting line, how to avoid them, how important is pre-treatment to the quality of a coating or finishing process, and how important is the human factor in the Industry 4.0 environment.

Participants to this panel discussion were: Lex Putman, Manager Training & Support on coating processes; Ricardo Minolfi, coating couch, Miroslav Kertov, Field engineer, Head of Lab & Innovations at Deyacolor; Paolo Ghiazza, CEO of Eurotherm, Alberto Bevilacqua& Simone Rogina, Sales Manager at Winoa; Martin Semanik& Francesco Piedimonte, Business Development at coatmaster.

 Technical demonstrations

In the afternoon the sppot organized real-time demonstrations of a surface finishing process of frames and other bicycle components: attendants could focus on some of the most common troubleshooting within the whole process. The host of the event, Eurotherm Spaset up a brand-new demonstration area with powder and liquid coating booths, equipped with Lesta’s robots, WAGNER’s spray guns and manual application systems needed for surface finishing of a bike frame. Posterama had a decaling workshop. Duthoo had a workshop on scratch repairments. Along with the process, visitors had the opportunity to check the latest colours and shades of TIGER’s powder coatings portfolio and Berlac’s liquid coatings.

 Dinner at the museum

On the evening of November 21, a networking dinner took place on the stunning backdrop of the Museo Egizio in Turin, the world’s oldest museum devoted entirely to ancient Egyptian culture. All guest were impressed by the beautiful setting, good food and flawless organization.

The event was great! Thanks to all those who participated!

The next is already under planning: Color Trend Days, April 2024 in Portugal.

Stay tuned.