RIETSCHLE (UK): `UNDERSTANDS THE PART EXHIBITIONS PLAY'

As a world leader in low-pressure air and vacuum technology, Rietschle understands the essential part which major exhibitions play in developing customer relationships, and in meeting engineers face-to-face. The pace of change in process industries is frightening, and we really have to understand the pressures facing our customers. You need the right products, of course, but without a long-term perspective, we can't hope to provide meaningful solutions to the process engineer's problems.

For example, we've just developed a new dry screw, single-stage vacuum pump (the Twister range), which will be a feature of our stand. You can run these pumps continuously, at any pressure between atmospheric and high ultimate vacuum - and they come with lots of bells and whistles. Yes, they're beautifully built, and we could bang on all day about performance figures and low operating costs.

But, because we understand the pressures which production managers are under, we knew that pump performance and dry-running capabilities are much taken for granted. The day-to-day problem in chemical and pharmaceutical plants is having pumps that will withstand different process requirements. Twister's success is based upon its range of material specification: from all stainless steel construction to models with process-wetted parts coated with nickel (20 microns), PTFE or PFA.