Sitola’s sales good in Germany Cutting equipment supplier Sitola is seeing good business in modernising and upgrading foam-cutting lines for customers, according to Rüdiger Simon, sales director (pictured right).
“Sitola has had several orders from Eurofoam” a group of flexible foam makers — some for modernising CNC cutting machines, Simon said, 28 Oct at the K 2010 plastics event in Düsseldorf.
Sitola is the first company to develop the modernisation scheme for cutters, but Simon believes some of the major suppliers of cutting machinery may follow its lead and offer a similar service.
Discussing the European foam sector, Simon said Italy and Spain are still suffering from poor sales, and noted that, for Sitola, the best market for cutting machinery still lies in Germany.
The US market is expanding for Sitola, both for cutting machinery and for cutting tools, which are Sitola’s first business speciality.
According to the Sitola executive, there is good demand in the US in some sectors for highperformance band knives for cutting particular types of specialist foams, for automotive headliners, for example. These blades can handle delicate, precise tasks such as slicing foam into very thin sheets for headliners, he added.
The endless blade for Sitola’s HP knives, is produced so that the welding seam disappears: Sitola regrinds the blade to remove the seam, which cuts down movement of the blade and so allows much higher cutting accuracy. Sitola charges a premium for such special HP blades, since they involve “double the work,” Simon agreed.
Another good business is reconditioned cutting equipment. Small start-ups can find investing in a new cutters prohibitive — or perhaps a customer only needs a cutter for a single high-volume order, or for a band knife with a special angle, he said.
Here a reconditioned cutter from Sitola is a valuable option, when investment in a new cutter is not warranted for the particular job, Simon said
