The Stuttgart fastener show is taking place this week. I have never been to the show but I have heard a lot of people talk about it so I decided to dig in a little and find out a little bit more about it. I went to the Stuttgart Show website and did a little exploring. It was interesting.
If you were to look at the list of exhibitors, heck, you’d think the show was held in a foreign country or something. 🙂 I found only ten exhibitors listed as attending from the U.S. Of those, there were only two fastener suppliers – Alloy & Stainless and Elgin Fastener Group. There were two U.S. based fastener news agencies – Fastener Tech International and Global Fastener News. Several of the other U.S. based firms deal in tooling or inspection including Mectron Engineering, Phillips Screw, R.T.M.Products, Vlier Products and Wrenthan Tool Group. Last but not least, the NFDA is listed as an exhibitor for the show.
A couple familiar names on the list, Brighton Best and Earnest Machine, are represented by their UK branches and they are not registered as U.S. based companies.
I’m sure many other U.S. based companies are sending people over there to either explore the show or to visit or look for suppliers. Our friend Daniel Rivalin from Bazibaza has let us know via Twitter that he will be at the show and has promised to post a few reports. I’m sure John Wolz and Mike McNulty will be providing coverage through their trade magazines and social media sites. It still strikes me that U.S. based suppliers have challenges breaking into the European market or I think you would see more of them exhibiting there. Also, I imagine there are still a few barriers because of our continued use of inch product while I’m guessing just about everything in Europe is metric except maybe replacement parts on old machines.
There are numerous other fastener shows all over the world and I imagine the U.S. based suppliers are about equally involved in those shows. We have our shows like the Vegas Show, Fastener Tech’15, the All American Fastener Show and several regional table tops. Rather than travel overseas, I see more U.S. based suppliers participating in customer specific shows like the Fastenal trade show or those put on by Grainger or Endries. I understand why the customer based shows are popular and valuable but it still seems like it would be interesting to put up a booth in Stuttgart just even for one year. I hope someone attending the Stuttgart show can comment on whether or not there would be value to more U.S. based manufacturers making that trip and setting up a booth in Stuttgart. Maybe that is something the NFDA visitors are exploring and will be able to comment on.