One of the wire sector’s strongest transatlantic partnerships was on display at CASMI’s recent SpringWorld 2024 show.
Alloy Wire International joined forces with its US and Canadian agents Davidon Alloys to showcase its 62-strong range of exotic alloys to thousands of visitors from across the world.
It was the fourteenth time we have exhibited together, and this was one of the busiest shows yet, with a raft of existing clients and potential new customers visiting the stand over the three days in Rosemont, Illinois.
Oliver Smith, Sales Executive at AWI, picked up the story: “The biggest highlight of CASMI is meeting so many contacts under one roof – whilst we love visiting factories and seeing the action up close, it would take us years to go around the amount of people we see in those three days.
“It’s always a pleasure sharing a stand with our good friends and trusted partners Davidon Alloys, who have been representing us in Canada and the US for 23 years now.”
He continued: “The partnership works really well, as they share similar values of manufacturing quality, unrivalled delivery times and exceptional customer service. By working together, we now supply more than $4.6m of wire to customers in this territory every year.
“I should also mention that it was the first AWI exhibition for Ian Sutcliffe and Joe D’Addese, who are based in Rhode Island and Canada respectively. They’ve fitted in seamlessly into what we are all about and we look forward to working with them over the coming years.”
2024 marked the 65th anniversary of SpringWorld, which was set up by the Chicago Association of Spring Manufacturers Inc to bring the most spring-related businesspeople together in one place.
This year’s show introduced a new element with the Spring Manufacturers Institute hosting its symposiums alongside it, giving thousands of delegates access to business and technical content across 24 educational sessions.
Andrew du Plessis, Technical Director at AWI, said: “As you would imagine, the technical sessions were a big highlight for me and reinforced that a lot of what we are doing with our R&D and materials is at the cutting-edge of the sector.
“There were also some interesting new trends that I’ll take back to the UK to see if we can take a specific Alloy Wire approach to them.
He added: “From talking to clients, there’s a definite increase in the number who are more conscious of sustainable practices and reductions in waste, two areas we can certainly help them with.
“The presidential election in the US is also having an impact on springmakers over there as they weigh-up which direction the country will be going in. Despite this we still took lots of enquiries and kickstarted several interesting projects.”
Davidon Alloys’ Michelle Nichols concluded: “It’s always great to have the UK guys over and spend time in their company, soaking up the latest developments from AWI. I know from chatting to our US customers that they really appreciate in-depth, face-to-face technical conversations with the team from the factory.”