Wood & Panel

Andreas Kanz

Andreas Kanz

Andreas Kanz, Business Development Manager, and Kawaljeet Bumbrah, Manager-Technical service, India from Adhesives Technologies, Henkel, spoke to Wood & Panel about their presence in India, their expectations, thoughts on bio based materials and lot more during IndiaWood. Read the conversation:

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How would you sum up 2019?

Andreas Kanz: Well, the financial results are yet to be published so I cannot give you exact statistics but for the woodworking industry, 2019 was a successful year. We, of course, had a lot of challenges, but challenges can be positive too. This is because, whenever a new regulation comes up, new innovations are required. And that is something we constantly do; bringing out new products; innovate for our customers in tandem with the regulations they have to face, wherever it is in the world.

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How has been your presence here in India?

Kawaljeet Bumbrah: Indian market is a growing and key market for Henkel. Traditionally Indian furniture market is a water-based market for home-made furniture by carpenters but now slowly peoplestarted accepting panel furniture. We are educating our customers and creating awareness in market for latest adhesive technologies for furniture manufacturing.

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What are you showcasing in this edition of IndiaWood?

Kawaljeet Bumbrah: We are showing hotmelt PUR adhesives. We are also educating our customers on a micro emission grade of hot melt PUR. Henkel has developed a product which is emission free. So these products are very safe products and have no hazardous label.

Andreas Kanz: We invented this technology and launched it in the market already more than 10 years ago. Now that other companies are following us shows that we were on the right path.

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If I may ask, what are your expectations from IndiaWood?

Andreas Kanz: I think first of all when you participate in an exhibition; it is a commitment to be a part of the industry.So we are part of the woodworking industry in India and also that we are manufacturing locally shows we are committed to the market.An exhibition is a marketplace where everybody meets each other -unfortunately this year, people are less from some countries because of the crisis and that some countries are not allowed to travel. We are not only hereto meet our customers or potential customers but also here to interact with our partners and allied suppliers as they are machine manufacturers and manufacturers of materials, panels, edgebanding materials, laminates.We can exchange knowledge and understand what the need of the customers today and what best solution we can offer. Environmental aspect, cost efficiency,availability of raw materials, everything is important as all these impact our business. In our sector, normally our role is to bond two materials. However, these days, not only in Europe, but globally- as I also spoke to some Indian companies and our partner companies here in India, it’s also about Recycling, i.e what can you do after the life span of the product. They also ask about debonding- how to separate things and we have the answers to that depending on the technology and how much glue is inside the product.

Another topic is bio- based materials. We see an increasing demand from our customers to use bio-based raw materials for the development and production of our adhesives.

And in order to best support our customers in the development of new products, we should talk early enough about their expectations of what should happen to their products during and at the end of their life cycle.

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What are your plans going forward in 2020?

Andreas Kanz:For us the biggest show in Europe is the LIGNA. But not this year, but next time in 2021. Nevertheless, we have already participated in some exhibitions in Europe, like the ZOW in Germany and the Eurobois in France. Unfortunately, the Corona crisis has destroyed a lot of these year´s exhibitions; therefore we cannot yet plan for the second half of 2020. But we hope that it will soon be possible to meet again on exhibitions.

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How do you think that this health crisis will affect the global woodworking industry?

Andreas Kanz: It all depends on how healthy people, societies and economies will be at the end of the crisis. It is not yet clear what the impact will be. But humanity is very adaptable and will also be able to recover from this crisis. Therefore I am full of hope that one day we can return to normality.


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