Parts cleaning technologies on centre stage

It may have been only eight months since parts2clean 2013, but parts2clean 2014 served up all the quality and quantity its exhibitors and visitors were hoping for and more. In its twelfth season, the international trade fair for industrial-parts and surface cleaning was co-located with the O&S international trade fair for surface treatments and coatings for the very first time.

More exhibitors recorded in this year’s part2clean exhibition

Held from 24 to 26 June, the premiere of this double act brought over 10,900 visitors to the Stuttgart Exhibition Centre. “The resulting synergies were a major plus for the exhibitors and visitors of both parts2clean and O&S,” said Olaf Daebler, the project director in charge of the two fairs at Deutsche Messe. “Sixty-two percent of all O&S visitors also attended parts2clean.” As a result, the post-show visitor statistics for parts2clean indicate that the show attracted no fewer than 8,460 visitors, which is just on 70% up on parts2clean 2013. Twenty-one percent of these visitors came from outside Germany, as compared with 20% in 2013. In all, 33 countries were represented in their number.

The visitor cross-over between the two shows was greeted with enthusiasm by exhibitors, including Nathalie Etienne, CEO of Weber Ultrasonics GmbH: “For us as manufacturers of ultrasound components, there were definitely major synergies with O&S. Given our product range, we actually need to have a presence at both of these trade fairs, and so this year it was great to achieve that with a single showcase. This year’s parts2clean went very well for us.”

This year’s edition of parts2clean featured 269 as against 265 in 2013. The exhibitors from 14 countries occupied 6,627 sq.m. (71,332 sq. ft.) of net exhibition area, up a good 4% compared with 2013.

Quality visitors with firm investment intentions

The gains this year were not purely quantitative. Exhibitors were equally pleased with the high level of technical understanding and decision making authority of the visitors they encountered. In their survey forms, 86% of the visitors indicated that they were involved in their organisations’ operational investment decisions, and 51% said they were at the show with concrete investment projects in mind.

86% of the visitors are involved in their companies’ investment decisions

“parts2clean is well established in the market and is very effective at targeting visitors who are interested in industrial parts cleaning. The meetings and dialogue we had with visitors this year were of an even higher quality than in previous years. We believe this is due in part to the fact that this year’s parts2clean, coming as it did only eight months after the previous show, had a higher-than-usual concentration of serious visitors with concrete capital investment projects in mind. The other reason, we believe, is that companies are generally taking industrial cleaning more seriously than before,” said Rainer Staub, Sales Director at Dürr Ecoclean GmbH.

parts2clean 2014 also went well for LPW Reinigungssysteme GmbH, as its CEO, Gerhard Koblenzer, reports: “We are very satisfied with this year’s parts2clean. The quality and quantity of the visitor contacts we made this year were on a par with last year, if not better. Every year, the ratio of new prospects to existing customers in the contacts we make works out at about 60:40. Another interesting thing this year is that we encountered a fairly high number of visitors from outside Germany – from places like Turkey, India, China and Eastern Europe.” Apart from Germany, the most heavily represented countries in terms of visitor numbers were Switzerland, Austria and Italy, followed by the UK and France. 

Betul Coker, a Freelance Business Consultant at Intersonik, Turkey, is also happy with this year’s show: “parts2clean is a specialist trade fair that enables us to establish and build new business relationships. This year, we also encountered relatively strong interest from commercial agents. Our parts2clean showcase attracted a lot of German-based visitors, but also high numbers of industry professionals from other countries, such as the UK, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and France. We are very satisfied with this year’s show and will be back again in 2015.”

Another person who will definitely be back at parts2clean in 2015 is Chuck Sexton, Sales Manager Industrial Products at Kyzen, USA:“parts2clean always gives us a whole lot of quality new contacts. And, no less importantly, it’s also a great opportunity to manage our relationships with plant manufacturers. We sell cleaning chemicals that are used in industrial plants, and so it’s always nice to come to a show like this, where we can meet up with large numbers of them at one convenient location. We’ll definitely be exhibiting again at parts2clean in 2015.”

Across various industries

This year’s parts2clean show attracted visitors from all key industries. The following industries were amongst the most strongly represented: mechanical and plant engineering, automobile and automotive components, metalworking, chemical and process engineering, surface technology and processing, electronics and electrical, plastics processing, medical and pharmaceutical equipment, precision engineering and optics, micro-tool- and micro-mould-making, and aeronautics. And it’s clear that the visitors were satisfied with the show’s exhibition offering, given that 94 percent of them said they would recommend parts2clean to others and 60 percent said they already had definite plans to attend again in 2015.