“Traditional technology today needs a lot of manpower. Manpower is becoming a problem all over the world because there is a lack of people.”
As Magazine Leather Publishing, we are at the 71st AYSAF Fair. There is a section about shoe technologies in the fair. In this section, we had a short interview with Mr. Ulderic Ramon, Regional Sales Manager at DESMA Stand based in Germany.
First of all, could you introduce DESMA?
DESMA is a German company. It is headquartered in Achim on Bremen in northern Germany. It was founded in 1946, right after the Second World War. So it’s a very well-established company and we produce injection molding machines for the shoe markets. So our main market is the safety footwear business, as some of the technologies that are injecting mainly the upper part of the Polyurethane. Of course, not only that, we have customers all over the world who produce other kinds of shoes. But we are very strong in the safety shoe business with polyurethane.
Can you briefly tell us about your innovations in the footwear industry?
As I said, our main business is direct injection. So these kind of big rotary machines, with different injection units, let’s say to create the unit weld to connect the unit weld directly to the upper part. And as I told you, this is mainly done with polyurethane, thermoplastic or rubber. Recently, of course, we are developing or we have already developed some features related to this market.
So, the use of lighter material. Dosing the material in a very technical way to ensure a better distribution of the material along the foot bed. But we are also working a lot on automation at the moment. So basically, you know, we have 100% of the market in mind.
So only 10 percent, about 10 percent is done by direct injection. Shoes are made by direct injection. Everything else is done by traditional technology. And this traditional technology today needs a lot of manpower. Manpower is becoming a problem all over the world because there is a shortage of people.
They want to continue working in the shoe business. So we have developed some automation to replace that, let’s say leg, to somehow support the customers in automating some of the processes that are normally done manually, so we now have several different possibilities that we can offer as a kind of unit cell or a combination of multiple processes, that we can link together and we think that will be a great benefit for us and for the market in the future.
We are currently at AYSAF in Turkiye and what will DESMA contribute to the Turkish footwear industry?
I would say that Turkiye is an important country, it is the link between Asia and Europe and Africa. So it is now a kind of meeting point for various parts of the world. That’s why we think and it’s really important that AYSAF is successful. That’s why we have been guaranteeing our participation for years.
Of course, year on year we expect the fair to increase, but this year I think it was a little bit below expectations to be honest. But of course we continue. We continue to support this market and let’s say we like to invite customers from the region. And at the same time, as I told you, we also ask North Africa and the Far East to participate in this fair and to be a future meeting point for business.
Dear Ulderico Ramon, Thank you very much for the valuable information.
We thank you.
