African Fusion March 2015

Launch of the Smarter range

Weco’s HSL solution: the smarter choice

During the last week of February 2015, Smarter Welding Africa, the sole distributor of the Smarter welding equipment range in Africa, added the Italian Weco brand to its local offering. African Fusion attends the launch and talks toSmarter’sCEO, FernandoAmaral and Weco director Giorgio Toniolo.

Smarter’s CEO, Fernando Amaral and Weco director Giorgio Toniolo.

A ugusta Tools, initially founded as a supplier of power tool ac- cessories and industrial tools in the late 1990s, was awarded the African distribution rights for the Smarter range of welding equipment in 2013 and established Smarter Welding Africa in October of that year. Manufactured in China to European norms, the range of light industrial inverters and the more sophisticated range of multi-process machines for the professional market achieved immediate success. Smarter is a global company found- ed in 1997 in China to develop and manufacture inverter-based welding equipment. “I joined the company from Portugal in 2008 to implement a European-style group strategy, and from a US$2.8-million company at that time, we arenowa $40-millionglobal business with representation in Russia; the USA; Europe; Brazil and more. We intend to addanewmanufacturingplant inTurkey in the near future to better support our European markets and, here in South Africa, we have found an ideal partner in Smarter Welding Africa,” says Amaral. Smarter’s core business involves large quantities of the smaller sized inverters and associated accessories – multi-process MMA and MIG inverters on the professional side and ac/dcMMA/ TIGmachines of up to 200 A for the light industrial market. “We produce 600 000 machines per year, of which 90 % are exported. But to complete our solutions

offering, we have developed a global relationship with Weco, renowned in Europe for its high-end welding devel- opment and engineering expertise,” he adds. Initially, the Weco machines were chosen to meet a need for a premium quality welding solution for the Chinese market, mostly for the military indus- tries. “The Chinese army as a huge need for big high-techweldingmachines, and in general, the most up to date welding technologies are beingdevelopedby the Europeans,” Amaral suggests. “Weco, although a small company operating in niche markets, develops some of the most technologically advancedwelding systems in the world, and since it is a small tomediumenterprise (SME), it has lower overheads and is able to produce these advanced systems at significantly lower costs than competing OEMs of premium quality welding equipment.” Why is Weco being introduced into South Africa? “We are travelling around the world to learn about new opportu- nities and markets,” responds Toniolo. “Here, we see opportunities in stain- less steel and duplex, in the building of trains, petrochemical equipment and a host of other industrial fabrication applications. Most importantly, though we see an opportunity to go to the next level in terms of weld quality and pro- ductivity. We want to become known as aprovider of welding solutionswithhigh quality requirements. We believe that,

by becoming associated with success in more difficult areas, all of Smarter’s otherweldingbusinesswill alsobenefit,” he explains. Amaral continues: “By offering the best solutions possible, we aim to de- velop partnerships based on trust. We are not seeking to simply sell machines. We aim to partner with fabricators to implement whole welding solutions. And by adding the Weco range to our offering, we can now cover the full spec- trumof welding fields and applications,” he tells African Fusion. “ Weco is an engineering company. We are small and focus mostly on engi- neering and development of solutions for the future. We operate in the niche market for machines with state-of-the- art functionality,” says Toniolo. “We were the first company in the world to have developed a 500 A multiprocess machine with TIG ac and dc capability and a full pulsed MIG feature set. We provide machines that offer the highest level of control, but at significantly lower costs compared to other top perform- ers,” he claims. Describing the Weco high-speed line (HSL) range of MIG (GMAW) welding machines, he reveals that HSLwas origi- nally developed five years ago for steel welding. “In steel, HSL offers significant welding speed increases, andwhile oth- ers have now followed suit, we were the first to develop this high speed GMAW technology,” Toniolo claims.

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March 2015

AFRICAN FUSION