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Engaging in industry activities
Afera, the European Adhesive Tape Association, held its 57th Annual Conference in the latter part of 2014, on this occasion, in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Mike Punter, Parafix’s Managing Director attended the event in his role as Chairman of Afera’s Marketing Committee.
The topic of this year’s Conference was “The future of the European adhesive tape industry: technology, trends and markets”. The event marked a shift of themes to discussions away from crisis management and included high quality presentations ranging from end user needs to economic analyses and market data. The Conference is a highly informative event and provides the opportunity to network with industry counterparts.
The conference is attended by more than 100 company delegates representing businesses along the adhesive tape industry value chain: manufacturers, raw material and machine suppliers, tape converters, research institutions, national tape organisations and other international counterparts.
Mike gave a very well received presentation describing some of the end uses of adhesive materials, from safety critical automotive and healthcare applications to the weird and wonderful requests received from customers, such as nipple covers for piglets!
Mike was also a panel member of the Captains of Industry debate in which a number of topics, chosen by members, are discussed. The lively debate saw some of the top managers in today’s European adhesive tape industry open up about their personal and company views on topics such as customer intimacy, Asian competition, flexibility, consolidation, raw materials and young talent.
Mike commented: “As an Adhesive Tape Converter it is important for us to continually be involved in the evolution of this very important and growing industry which covers many market sectors and regions, as well as to constantly remind our tape manufacturing colleagues of the Converters’ capabilities.
Afera fairly reflects the European market place and therefore it is logical we support and participate.
