Bichamp Sees Strong Bandsaw Potential in Southeast Asia

Vincent Chai of Bichamp Cutting Technology talks about the landscape for bandsaw products in Southeast Asia, the latest challenges facing manufacturers when it comes to cutting, and how they are helping customers improve their processes. Article by Stephen Las Marias.

Vincent Chai

Established since 2003 , Bichamp Cutting Technology (Hunan) Co. Ltd manufactures high-performance bandsaw blades. Based in Changsha in Hunan Province, China, the company—one of the leading bandsaw manufacturers worldwide—is the only bandsaw maker in China that is listed in the stock exchange.

The company manufactures blades in its latest advanced production equipment and facilities in Changsha, Hunan. Bichamp uses top global raw material components and currently have the biggest production capacity in China.

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In an interview with Asia Pacific Metalworking Equipment News, Vincent Chai, Regional Sales Manager ASEAN at Bichamp Cutting Technology, talked about the landscape for bandsaw products in Southeast Asia, the latest challenges facing manufacturers when it comes to cutting, and how they are helping customers improve their processes.

WHAT OPPORTUNITIES ARE YOU SEEING IN SOUTHEAST ASIA?

Vincent Chai: The Southeast Asia market is not as big as China or Europe, or even Japan, but we can see that over the past decade, there has been consistent growth in this market. That means there is potential for further growth here—not to the extent of what you are seeing in North America or Europe—but it is still a reasonable market.

I would say that Bichamp now is in the same stage as the other players worldwide. We are providing sawing solutions, and we are growing our technical team in this region to better service our customers. One concern with Southeast Asia is that you need to work with the right distributors in each country, and assists them in building their customer base moving forward.

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Vietnam is now the fastest growing economy in Southeast Asia. Due to affordable labour and government incentives, investments are coming in more and more, especially from Japan, Singapore, they are setting up more factories and manufacturing here.

The automotive industry is also growing. Big automotive companies are setting up manufacturing plants here, as a duplicate of Thailand, and even Indonesia. I would say, maybe in five to 10 years’ time, we would see Vietnam overtake certain countries in ASEAN. As we know, Thailand is still the number one in automotive sector, followed by Indonesia.

WHAT TECHNOLOGY TRENDS ARE IMPACTING THE BANDSAW INDUSTRY?

VC: Bandsaws have been here for a few hundred years already. There are not too complicated in terms of investments in technology. The only thing is that we are now seeing different types of sawing application—from bandsaw, people are shifting to circular saws as an alternative, which we might be looking into this application in the future as we do see these kinds of trends moving toward circular saws. Of course, circular saws and bandsaws are two different things. They both have limitations—there are things bandsaws can do, which circular saw can’t, and vice versa.

It has been said that circular saws will take over bandsaws in the future. But I have been hearing this since I first started in the industry. And bandsaws are still moving up, and sales have been increasing. I don’t think there will be much difference for now but who would know what future lays ahead.

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In circular saws, the limitation is the thickness of the size you can cut. At the moment, we would say that the most common size are below 200 mm in diameter; but with bandsaws, you can cut up a wide range of sizes and shapes. The range is unlimited; it depends on the type of machine you have. The bigger the machine, the bigger materials it can cut. In South East Asia, we don’t have very large cutting capacities compare to China.

But with circular saws, the bigger the machine you use, the higher costs you have. There are limited companies that would invest in this kind of big circular saws, unless they are steel manufacturers. If they produce steel, yes, I do see circular saws as big as 3m to 5m. But in the manufacturing industry, circular saws are used for machining parts, where you have consistent parts of, like, diameter 80, and you need thousands of pieces per month. Then you use circular saws—they are faster and cost effective. But if you are in an industry where you process multiple sizes to cut, and multiple materials, bandsaw is still the best.

WHAT ARE THE USUAL CHALLENGES YOUR CUSTOMERS EXPERIENCE?

VC: At present, we now have more advanced technologies, so the materials used to manufacture a product are getting more advanced as well. They get tougher and more wear-resistant. So, workpiece materials tend to be harder to cut, especially in industries like oil and gas and aerospace; they have titanium, Inconel and other superalloys. Also, we usually hear people saying they still don’t understand a lot about bandsaws. They always think that bandsaws are just simple pieces of band that cuts materials. We are here to educate users the right way to maximize their sawing operations.

READ: Bringing Bandsawing Into The Modern Age

HOW DO YOU HELP CUSTOMERS ADDRESS THESE ISSUES?

VC: It’s not as technical as compared to cutting tools. We already have products that are suitable for cutting superalloy materials. Besides provide the right cutting parameters; to understand further their sawing operation, we would arrange appointments to learn more and gathered details information from machine type, workpiece materials and sizes as well as other requirements so we could further assist their operation.

WORKING CLOSELY WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS IS A VERY BIG FACTOR TO SUCCESS.

VC: Yes, and also with distributors, because they are the frontliners. We don’t do direct sales. Most of the bandsaw manufacturers appoint distributors, they are the frontline. They go out to do the selling and servicing . How we support them is by constantly doing joint visits with them, as well as updating their training to improve their technical competency. The more I get involve in the market, the more we could understand the market demands.

DO YOU HAVE ANY FINAL COMMENTS?

VC: In the future, I would believe that companies from China would be a very strong competitor to those forerunners because bi-metal bandsaw is not a sophisticated technological advance product. It is more about customer service. I am sure that we would be strong globally moving forward, because we have a team of global sales that understands. Bichamp believes in investing in the right people.

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