There has been a great deal of dialogue, of late, concerning steel stockholders and their involvement in sub contract laser cutting. This is not new of course but it has become a hot subject since one of the UKs major stockholders, ASD, has installed equipment and become a jobshop. Whilst we cannot dictate the direction any company would wish to take - they are entitled to make their own commercial decisions - the addition of a major stockholder to an already competitive marketplace is of obvious concern. Sources tell me that they will be looking to spread their subcontracting activities to other branches.

What is the opinion of other jobshop members? Do you see a threat? if so, what are you prepared to do to counter it. 

It will be interesting to see if they can compete on quality and service, and will they be able to offer the range of ancillary processes most of us are offering now. 

For my part I realise that they are in business, primarily, to sell steel but they will not be selling any more to me - unless I have no choice. We have spent millions with ASD group companies over the years -and now they are targetting my customers.

Dave Lindsey - Laser Process - Cannock

This is not a new thing as TATA steel and Nuneaton Steel have both gone into the subcontract market.  Clearly to compete with your customers could be a risky strategy and when I worked for UK industrial laser manufactures it was the deciding factor why they did not provide a job shop service.  I can see where they could have a laser cutting machine when it is a large format machine for a specific niche market and simply there isn't the service out there but to have 3 x 1.5m machines it is a decision I hope they have considered correctly.  The solution may be to just use stockholders that do not have lasers.  We do not welcome any stockholder sales persons if they have lasers from bad experience in the past.

Lpro said:

There has been a great deal of dialogue, of late, concerning steel stockholders and their involvement in sub contract laser cutting. This is not new of course but it has become a hot subject since one of the UKs major stockholders, ASD, has installed equipment and become a jobshop. Whilst we cannot dictate the direction any company would wish to take - they are entitled to make their own commercial decisions - the addition of a major stockholder to an already competitive marketplace is of obvious concern. Sources tell me that they will be looking to spread their subcontracting activities to other branches.

What is the opinion of other jobshop members? Do you see a threat? if so, what are you prepared to do to counter it. 

It will be interesting to see if they can compete on quality and service, and will they be able to offer the range of ancillary processes most of us are offering now. 

For my part I realise that they are in business, primarily, to sell steel but they will not be selling any more to me - unless I have no choice. We have spent millions with ASD group companies over the years -and now they are targetting my customers.

Dave Lindsey - Laser Process - Cannock

Have to agree we wont buy any more material from ASD as I understand that they are actively chasing job shop work, Corus in Leeds were set up to do specialist work and as such weren't a commercial worry for us in terms of being a competitor, it seems however that this isn't the case with ASD.

Hello all,

I suspect the main culprits behind this are the laser manufacturers, they have discovered a new market. That we have a number as AILU members (Trumpf, Amada, Bystronic eg.), it is not surprising that they are seeing the potential and taking the opportunities.

Regards

A. Bransden, Ionbond Lasertechnik