PETpla.net Insider 05 / 2011

PET TOP TALK 14 PET planet insider Vol. 12 No. 05/11 www.petpla.net 14 PETplanet: Does your planning allow for international production locations? Otto Hofstetter: Here in Uznach we are fortunate in having good resources in terms of personnel, highly trained skilled staff that we would not find abroad. It is also dif- ficult to find people who are happy to take their expertise to India or China and to transfer the know-how. It is only once the staff problem has been resolved that we will look at taking our production abroad. PETplanet: Is Uznach in Switzer- land the right location for deliveries to global markets? Otto Hofstetter: It goes without saying that Switzerland is the right location for manufacturing preci- sion and quality. In sales we work alongside machine manufacturers and make use of their international organisational facilities. As far as service is concerned, we will prob- ably be setting up further interna- tional strategic stations within the short term, because proximity to the client is an important factor – as it is, for example, in India. Currently our service and trouble-shooting engineers travel from Switzerland to our customers throughout the world. As things are today, a cen- tral service facility operating out of Switzerland is not a problem. PETplanet: Hofstetter, alongside Netstal, is perceived in the market place as a reputable company that tends to be respectable, solid and conservative rather than technically revolutionary, ingenious or innova- tive. Right or wrong? Otto Hofstetter: Yes and no. I think that, as the unit Netstal-Hofstet- ter we are conservative and reliable. As regards innovation, we are the driver of innovation in this partnership. In the last few years we have carried out further development work on the product; we have put forward propos- als as regards cooling technology, including cycle times. We have ideas for robots. Our plan is to take our part- ners with us – for our mutual success. On market, marketing and strategy PETplanet: You once said with some regret: “We mould-makers are sandwiched between machine maker and converter, between the techni- cal performance presented by the injection moulding machine and the customer requirement for a per- fect process and a high quality end product”. It looks as though you fall between two stools. Otto Hofstetter: That used to be the case but things have changed. Today’s customers are more strongly focused on the mould-makers than they have been for years. What they have discovered is that the mould lies at the heart of the production line for PET preforms. This makes us as mould-makers very happy. PETplanet: You are cultivating contacts with the converters. What sort of volume of sales transactions do you achieve by way of direct contacts and how many with the machine manufacturers? Otto Hofstetter: We achieve approx. one third with the machine manufacturers and two thirds direct. Otto Hofstetter: “Mould precision plus reliability in terms of production and delivery schedules – these we rate pretty highly.”