Latest WNT catalogue boasts 4,000 new products

Published annually, the catalogue is a key route to market, and almost 10 per cent of the products in the latest edition are new to the range, which this year means some 4,000 new products appearing in the catalogue for the first time. Very few products are ‘retired’, says WNT. While information on the entire range of products from WNT is accessible via its Total Tooling Online portal at www.wnt.com, many customers continue to find the printed catalogue invaluable, as it can be stored on the shopfloor where it is needed most. “The catalogue is an important part of our marketing strategy,” says Tony Pennington, managing director, WNT (UK). “Our customers are typically small to medium sized businesses and many of them are still shopfloor driven in regard to their tooling requirements. Having our entire product range at the fingertips of machine operators and production engineers is crucial to our ongoing success. Printing the catalogue is a substantial investment for WNT but one that we are happy to continue to make as the end result fully justifies it.” While Germany-headquartered WNT continues to deliver record year-on-year growth the catalogue and product range from WNT is going through a period of evolution rather than revolution, with ranges being developed and expanded to meet the latest demands from customers. This evolution still results in over 4000 new products being added this year. Typical of this is the HPC range of carbide endmills, which has been pivotal in achieving record sales during the last financial year for WNT (UK). This range is now benefiting from a full complement of cutters with corner radii, with extra length, with reduced neck diameters and now with strengthened cores to deliver even higher feed rates. “These changes are driven by feedback that the whole WNT group receives from its customers,” said Mr Pennington. “As a result we are providing customers with the cutters that they need, which in turn is having an extremely positive effect on our turnover here in the UK. Year-on-year sales are up 21 per cent and a large amount of that is down to the success of cutters like HPC, which are taking the market by storm, simply because they are delivering the productivity gains that the market is demanding.” While the HPC range is winning new business for WNT in the premium high performance end of the market, it is also catering for many small to medium sized sub-contract companies who do not have a requirement for a premium performance range of cutters due to the low-volume nature of their work. “If a customer is only producing small batch quantities it is often difficult for them to justify spending £40.00 on a 10 mm diameter HPC cutter, when a £20.00 cutter will suffice. We addressed this with our range of solid carbide 50 627 end mills, which have sold in large numbers for many years. This range has now been extended due to requests from customers for longer series cutters.”