2015 has been a great year for Weinig! 2016 started off well with 4000th moulder produced. Tell us about your marketing strategy for 2016!

Gregor Baumbusch : Like you already mentioned, 2015 was extremely good year for us, we performed better. In our budget we already had a high forecast, and we were able to increase our order income by more than seven percent which makes 2015 really a good year. Regarding 2016, especially when we have the year with Holz-Handwerk, normally the first quarter up to the show is not so strong! But luckily this year we were able to generate high order income already in January and February and now with the show, we are sure to have a good promising first quarter of 2016.

Weinig Group has a series of premiers here at Nuremberg! If you can brief us about Weinig Sytem Plus- the main advantages of this machine.

Gregor Baumbusch : The system plus is a system where you can organize the whole workflow in the company. So it starts with the Moulder Master software in combination with the new Rondamat 1000, so it organizes the whole work before or besides the real machining. So this is a system, where you can generate or simulate the whole workflow you do in your company. This is a big advantage because, normally what you do it at the machine in the production- but with our new system you can do that totally outside of the production and you can store all the necessary production data in our system plus. Also in combination with our new pre setting device, the digital presetting machine that we have, there I will show you later on live, we can simulate the whole production process upfront! So this a big benefit for our customers that means the production is getting faster, more reliable we are able to do, main part – its safe, and this is a real benefit in production.

Cube Plus is here too! What are the added benefits of Cube Plus.

Gregor Baumbusch : Yes we have the new Cube Plus now! You already know that the Cube is our entry level machine in four side moulding and it’s the most easy to handle machine in the market. So everyone is able to handle or to operate this machine and I would like to invite you later on to machine wood on the Cube Plus. We now have the new bigger panel in the machine for even more simple operation of the machine, we have our new innovative tool system in the machine that generates a better surface of the wood and also it is the first spindle is now easier task to make it simpler to machine on the Cube Plus.

What more can we expect from the new Powermat 1500?

Gregor Baumbusch : The P1500 is our second new platform machine beside P700. At the LIGNA show in Hannover, we showed the P700 and this is now the next generation- the machine that replaces the P1200. The new benefit, the innovation of this machine that it machines for the midsized customer, it is very flexible and easier to adjust. You can machine higher width of the material. It machines up to 310 mm instead of only 300 mm. We have the higher RPM in the standards, so we have the 7000 RPM instead of 6000 RPM in the standard version, we have the feed rate in standard of 40metres/min, we have the Comfort Plus System already in the standard version, that means it’s much easier to adjust, much faster to adjust and the accuracy in adjustment is much higher. Optional for sure with the RPM, we can go up to 12000 RPM in combination with our power lock clamping system. So lot of highlights innovations with this new platform machine.

Gregor Baumbusch : Opticon Pro is our new data structure on all our controls in the Weinig group. This is an idea born out of the Industry 4.0 strategy. So whenever a customer is working with the Weinig machine, the data structure in our controls is the same. So no matter if he is working with a moulder or a cutting saw, he will always feel home with our new control system.

How does Conturex Compact fulfill the Industry 4.0 standards?

Gregor Baumbusch : The Conturex Compact in general is the latest development in our product unit windows. It’s the entry level machine of premium class and this machine is linked with a MDEBDE connection so we can see all machine’s data via the control, via a mobile devices like a tablet. We have the censors integrated in the machines, we can measure the energy consumption, we get feedback from the drives, for example, we control the temperature, we get the feedback, for example if we have the collision, we have a much better database for our service, for proactive service activities so also for our customers- so we get the running time, the active time of the machines- these are all available now. Also, we have additional interfaces now in this machine- we have a BTL interface for our branch software collision. So this is more or less an open machine, where we can use all kinds of branch software system to run the machines. So it’s a big benefit now having a much higher transparency for our customers and for us.

Tell us about your participation in this Holz-Handwerk show and also Xylexpo is coming in few months! If you can tell us about Italy market as well.

Gregor Baumbusch : The Holz Handwerk show for us is a very important show because like you know, Weinig, we are the market leader in the solid wood window production and this is the main show for us in Europe for windows. In the past, the show was more or less local, focused on Germany and Austria. But this year, for the first time, we have already appointments with customers out of more than 25 countries. This is very promising for us, because we see a big interest, specially for windows, here. I think it is little bit changing from a local show to a more international show. Also for the general market, the field market, for Holzher this is a very important show, because we have a lot of small and medium sized customers here, and already at the first day, we were able to sell a lot of machines on the orange side and the green sides. So very promising for us! The best first day of the Holz Handwerk show.

Yes, we will be there at Xylexpo with a nice booth! Italy is a very interesting market for us because there are also a lot of producers of machines. This is a key market and also the Cacan Europe market is coming back so, we were able to generate a lot of new business, beginning of the middle of last year in Italy, Spain and the Cacan European region , and we will show a lot of new things and highlights also at the Xylexpo in Milan.