Features
Peter Koeppel, Managing Director, Leitz Tooling Asia Pte Ltd tells Goh Tz’en Long about new cutting tool developments and gives insights on the wood manufacturing industry in the Asia Pacific region.
Innovation In
Tooling Besides offices in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, does Leitz plan to set up more in Southeast Asia? Yes, we intend to set up one in Thailand. The Thai industry is doing well, especially in panels. The new office will have the same setup as Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia and will concentrate on diamond cutting tools.
or the rainforest and depend on countries like Malaysia and Indonesia. Some of our customers have started to get supply from overseas instead of their own countries. If they are doing the wood forestry in their own country, it will be good for the whole industry. There are also alternative businesses such as the import of MDF from China.
Are there any new product developments in the pipeline? Yes, in the area of thin kerf saw blades and diamond head cutter blades. Leitz has been in the market for 130 years and is the market leader in innovations. There will be improvements on diamond cutters; monocrystalline diamond (MCD) gives much better surface quality and running time is almost 10 times longer.
Where do you see the areas of growth in the Asia Pacific region? This is what everyone is talking about. Everybody’s talking about China. I used to work for a metalworking company before. I set up one in China. Leitz also has production in China which caters mainly to the local market and not for export. But sooner or later they will also be exporting to Southeast Asia. Growth in my opinion will come from countries such as India, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, and hopefully Indonesia becomes more stable politically. Technology will be ahead in places such as Singapore and Malaysia.
How do you feel about prospects for Southeast Asian woodworking market? Prospects of woodworking or wood manufacturing will depend on forestry
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Wood-based panel manufacturing appears to be on the rise and encroaching on some of the areas occupied by solid wood in furniture manufacturing because of environmental reasons. How do you feel this will have an impact on Leitz’ business? They will need better tools because solid wood is something which is quite nice to work with. If it comes to panels, you can have a plastic surface on top and it is very difficult to cut. It will be a challenge for tool manufacturers to develop new tools to get better performance. In Europe, the forests are growing and there is actually overproduction on wood. Some of our Asian customers for panel, parquet and even laminates, are importing wood for the top layer, and the top layer is from Europe. Going by the kind of requirements from customers and end users, nobody wants to have tropical wood surface which is in colour a little bit darker than the European ones. They are importing light coloured wood such as beech, maple or walnut.
Features
In the European market, furniture manufacturers are gearing up for greater automation with multiaxis machining centres and and integrated systems for assembly. Other developments include laser positioning and guidance for tools? Do you see this trend catching on in Southeast Asia? We have already seen this trend with some of our customers. They are doing this guiding with the lasers. They are also doing the laser detection on tools where you have to cut strips and glue or join them together. That’s the technology on the machinery side. Automation is another question because you need high volume and some of our customers in Southeast Asia are rather small. So smaller manual machines are more flexible. If you want high volume or automation, you will need higher educated people and I think this is better for countries like Singapore and Malaysia. Can you tell us about the Tool Information Management System? We are working on a ‘complete care’ tool programme which is also to be implemented in the Asian market. We are already having it in our daughter company Leitz Metal. There is already complete care and the customer is not paying for the tools but per metre produced. Leitz takes care of the tools, the sharpening and replacements and also with the development of control for the supporting management. We have implemented tooling with microchips. The microchip knows exactly when the tool has been worn out, when it was last sharpened or needs replacement. So you can have a printout for the tool data. That is the management of the tooling and has been implemented already in some
of the service stations in Europe. That comes with investments on the customer side, investment on tools and the machine. The machines have to be refurnished with quickchange systems for the tooling. What lies in the future of tool development? We are listening closely to the needs of the customer. We have not developed a saw blade which nobody can use. Development is sometimes difficult because markets are sometimes different. We are developing the ‘complete care’ or management tools in Europe whereas in countries like the US, we are developing hand held programming devices for tool sharpening or tool design and in Southeast Asia, the emphasis is on settings for sharpening or maintenance. We h a v e c u s t o m e r s i n Kalimantan, say 100 km from the main town and it takes maybe one day to reach them. The trend now is to develop tools that are longer lasting so that investment for the customer is lowered and there is more time for maintenance. Another development is in the area of thin kerf saw blades for parquet lines which allows an increase of more than 30 percent on output. Do you think the present level of service and maintenance is sufficient? The challenge is to have the best people and well-trained personnel and I am also looking into improving service with capable staff who can handle on-site problems well. One of the areas where I will be looking into will be education and training for the staff. FDM
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