Archive for the 'ceramicx' Category

All points East and West

February 10, 2012 by Cathal Wilson

Small companies such as ourselves who supply to a full variety of global markets have to develop a strong mindset that can cope with being in several places at once.

I haven’t yet run to having the international time zone clock on my desk – but right now it doesn’t seem like a bad idea. East is meeting West more and more frequently in international business these days – particularly as China’s performance and ambitions continue to rise.

For example, no sooner have we finished the preparation and issues relating to our first Ceramicx exhibition stand at Chinaplas, Shanghai (the show begins in late April 2012) than I’m thinking about marketing needs for the USA National Plastics Exposition starting in Orlando Florida three weeks earlier.

At the same the Ceramicx factory floor is seeing the first fruits and benefits from our Innovation Partnership manufacturing research work – conducted with the University of Limerick team.

It’s all good. In fact the cross fertilisation of various markets and marketing needs helps us at Ceramicx to realise the common platform for infrared heating needs worldwide. We get to identify the strongest common denominators in our products and the marketing of the Ceramicx brand. We enhance these elements accordingly and we also get to make the IR heating benefits and applications even clearer.

And our next edition of our HeatWorks magazine will therefore outline and celebrate these issues and markets in a special East/West edition which Ceramicx will publish next month, ahead of these important shows.

In the meantime, what time is it in Beijing?……

Posted in ceramicx, infrared heaters, Infrared Heating, Innovation Partnership, Innovation Partnership Project, IR development | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Back to work: both home and away

January 5, 2012 by Frank Wilson

Already it’s an interesting year: The Ceramicx exhibition stand has just been confirmed for Chinaplas 2012, April 18-21. As befits our Irish status, we have been located in the international hall at the mid point between the UK and the USA. Myself and Cáthál will both be in attendance in Shanghai. Ceramicx is looking forward to doing a significant level of business at Chinaplas 2012.

Whatever the commentators might say – and their guess is as good as yours – it is clear as day that the Asian economic juggernaut just keeps on coming. Ceramicx intends to be in the thick of it: Our infrared heating products will also be featured two months earlier in Delhi at Plastindia 2012 on the stand of our Indian partner, Elmec. Ceramicx will continue to affirm a commitment to these important export markets, which are the life blood of our company.

Ten days before Shanghai we will be back from Orlando, Florida where we will have exhibited at the USA’s premier National Plastics Exhibition (NPE) with our US Partner, Weco International. Truth to tell, the US economy is still the largest in the world and US manufacturing has shown a lot of fighting spirit through 2011. Ceramicx intends to do our very best by US industry – supplying innovation and profit-making through infrared heating solutions.

Speaking of size, I now read that Brazil has overtaken the UK as the sixth largest economy in the world. No shame there – the pace of Brazilian expansion has been at a quantum rate and the UK in any case is set to overhaul the French within the next three years

The South American situation is sitting up nicely for our new recruit, Patrick Wilson, who is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, who has travelled extensively and resided in that continent and who is keen to hit the sales and marketing trail once his production and manufacturing apprenticeship has completed.

In the meantime, however, our energies are much closer to home: We have a kiln to fire up; further plans to complete for our alternative energy generation; a new Innovation Partnership to kick start – and many other projects of the day to progress and complete.

Flexibility and balance come to mind already as watchwords for 2012: Successful businesses – from anywhere – will be able to ride the trade winds of global manufacturing only and as long as they have their house in order; have innovation on their side, together with a competitive offering. Those are the features that Ceramicx will be demonstrating to our markets throughout 2012.

Our HeatWorks magazine – fifth edition – will be on its way to our readers this month. If you missed out on our last issue – and want to get onto the circulation or have a story for our Spring 2012 issue – just order up from Ceramicx direct and get yourself on the mailing list.

Posted in ceramicx, Chinaplas, Infrared Heating, Infrared Heating Solutions, Plastindia | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Enterprise succeeding…

December 19, 2011 by Frank Wilson

Our fifth edition of HeatWorks magazine is now on its way to the printers – and in the New Year, readers will be treated to another groundbreaking roster of technical and commercial topics in infrared heating.

On the home front, we are delighted to be giving pages to the ongoing story of the  Ceramicx Innovation Partnership with the University of Limerick (UL). A large vote of thanks for the success of this project is certainly due to the enabling presence of Enterprise Ireland.

Ceramicx has been fortunate in the guiding presence of Enterprise Ireland, especially in the persons of both Dr Tom Bannon and Paul McCloskey. I know that it may break with some protocols to mention the role of individuals. But business is a thing conducted by people, between people. And besides, protocol-breaking is a large part of my job.

Furthermore, the model of the EI Innovation Partnership is the correct way forward for industry; not only for Ireland but in general: As I have said time and again, there is little to no use in science or engineering that has no use – that has no customers or applications. Enterprise Ireland has helped developed a method that keeps both the creative IP of the Universities and the dynamism of the manufacturing sector in service, and in train with each other.

We consequently have very high hopes and ambitions for our new Innovation Partnership with the University of Limerick. We now see it as helping deliver nothing less than world-class performance and leadership for Ceramicx in the manufacture of infrared heating systems.

The deft match-making skills of Enterprise Ireland have been key to this process and have helped and encouraged us to hold this bold forward vision.

True, not all matches are made in heaven – and most partnerships need work in order to work: A skilled match-maker, however, is able to anticipate and smooth over difficulties in custom and practice – as well as provide ‘translation’ services wherever needed.  All this we have benefited from.

Let me say here that Ceramicx very much hopes to extend and deepen our relationship with Enterprise Ireland as we pursue our goals. The quality of its people and the service given has been outstanding and yet – even so – we feel the best is yet to come.

Posted in ceramicx, Frankly Speaking, infrared heaters, Infrared Heating, Infrared Heating Technology, Innovation Partnership, Innovation Partnership Project | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Opening up Fundamentals

November 29, 2011 by Cathal Wilson

Here at Ceramicx we are again looking to publishing our fifth issue of HeatWorks magazine. The enthusiasm for the publication – inside and outside the company remains as keen as ever and will be reflected in the dozen or so articles being lined up for the new contents.

Key among the forthcoming pieces is a contribution written by Dr Tony Robinson, based at Trinity College, Dublin.

Tony’s article will pick up the baton in relation to the fundamentals of infrared heating technology. We always aim to enhance the commercial and technical pieces in the magazine with some more general and educational material on the vast and untapped potential within IR heating.

Our last issue of HeatWorks, for example, included an article that described and discussed the beneficial effects of IR heating on the human body.

In our next issue, Tony will look at the fundamental science and behaviour of IR heating in 3D space. His department at Trinity is doing great measurement and prediction work in that area. It is my hope that this research at Trinity will have profound implications for the way we think and plan our comfort and heating – specifically in the way we design and build heating systems for homes, shops, factories, offices and the built environment: Infrared heating is extremely accurate in the way it can target particular zones and spaces. And a relatively small input of IR heating in the right zone of a building can deliver a very large payback in terms of overall saved energy cost.

In truth, the infant science of infrared heating needs many more champions such as Tony Robinson in order to make explicit and realise the benefits of the technology. HeatWorks magazine, in its own way, is doing its bit.

And I simply encourage all IR practitioners to step forward and share with us your best articles and views for consideration throughout our publishing schedule next year. With the right communications campaigns we can all work for IR development and growth together.

It would be a poor show indeed if Ceramicx itself were unable to walk this talk.  It therefore gives me great pleasure to be allowed the opportunity to be lecturing at Trinity College this Thursday in order to share the IR industrial perspective and to communicate the best of our IR know how to the engineering student audience.

For all interested I will this week be delivering an open lecture on the subject of Ceramic Infrared Emitter Production. The lecture will take place on Thursday December 01 2011: 15:00, Parsons Building Seminar Room 2, Trinity College Dublin. I hope to see you there!

Posted in ceramic heaters, ceramicx, infrared heaters, Infrared Heating, Infrared Heating Experts, Infrared Heating Technology | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ceramicx People and Production Development

November 17, 2011 by Frank Wilson

In the life of a Small to Medium Enterprise (SME) nothing counts more than its people: Indeed an SME company is many times more likely to be aware of this fact and to be actively engaged in making sure that the right people are deployed on the right tasks.

At Ceramicx we have great opportunity to fast track our people development and to give our talent the opportunity to become true practitioners in all aspects, namely research & product development; engineering; production; quality control; sales and marketing.

We are therefore delighted to be ringing the changes on a couple such moves this month: We know that it will serve the individuals and, ultimately, we know it will serve the net wealth of the company and the service given to the customer.

Padraig Courtney

Padraig Courtney has made a success of his day-to-day role as production manager – overseeing the entire process – from clay to complete and finished parts.  There are very few situations on the Ceramicx production line that Padraig has not been party to. He is therefore ideally placed to join our new Infrared Innovation Partnership team; now working alongside other researchers from the University of Limerick in our new two-year innovation partnership project funded by Enterprise Ireland and Ceramicx. As part of this Pádraig will earn a Master Engineering Degree that will be focused on “Novel manufacturing engineering and cost analysis modeling for process optimization in an SME setting”. At Ceramicx we are creating an explicit and scientific matrix involving all chemical, mechanical and electrical inputs and outputs of our process. There can be none better than Padraig to help the Partnership team with all the empirical facts of the matter.

Patrick Wilson

Meanwhile Padraig’s role has been taken up by new recruit Patrick Wilson. A graduate of Business Studies from Trinity with a Diploma in Management earned as part of a graduate management program with Kerry Group with several languages at his disposal, including Spanish, Portuguese and French, Patrick has spent the last number of years working for Kerry Group first leaving the company as a production Manager to join us Ceramicx Infrared Heat Consultants last month. Patrick might have seemed destined straightaway for our international sales effort. We believe, however, that his Ceramicx apprenticeship is best served from the start by bringing the skills and experience that he has gained in his role as a production manager for Kerry Group to bear on the Ceramicx production processes. This will allow him to gain an intimate knowledge of the product and the production process and allow any Sales in the future to be carried out from position of production understanding.

We raise a glass to our new practitioners and to their new horizons and to new successes at Ceramicx.

Slainte!

Posted in ceramic heaters, ceramicx, Ceramicx Ireland Ltd, Infrared Heating Consultants, Innovation Partnership Project, IR development | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment