African Fusion June 2019

Cover story: Air Liquide

The 3-metre radius welding

Michael Ashley, Mwali Kawawa and Rolf Schluep, mem- bers of the Air Liquide Marketing Team, talk about the development of their new Welding and Cutting offering aimed at being the topofmindpartner to the Automotive and Fabrication industries.

products. We have now introduced the offering to all our main-hub offices across the country, which all stock gas, filler materials and our full range of welding and cutting equipment. This en- ables customers to get everything they need to set up awelding operation from any Air Liquide branch,” Ashley assures. “As well as offering a wide range of filler materials for all welding applica- tions, the equipment range, torches, regulators, nozzles and brazing rods which have enjoyed notable growth, we still experience significant demand for various types of electrodes and the intro- ductionof Hyperthermplasmamachines hasbeenwellreceived”Ashleycontinues. “To meet the needs of the premium customer, the company has chosen to partner with several premiumsuppliers. “For filler materials and equipment, we have chosen as a partner ESAB, which is a global provider of innovative welding

Air Liquide nowhas the ability tooffer a completeweldingandcutting solution. Aholistic offeringprovidingwelding filler materials, welding and cutting equip- ment – alongside the traditional Air Liquidegas offering. “Our offering relates directly to the welders’ needs within a 3 metre radius as most welding cells will requiremore thanoneprocess tobeused to complete a fabrication task,” Ashley tells African Fusion . “We have long seen the potential of hard goods being sup- plied in conjunction with our gas,” he says, adding that this strategy was per- ceived well before Weld-Cut equipment was fully integrated into Air Liquide. “With the 3 metre radius in mind, we began to look for extended opportuni- ties to support our customers’ needs, with a firm goal in mind of providing a one-stop-shop for everything a welder needs to productively, efficiently and successfully produce quality welded

“ I n today’smanufacturingenviron- ment, customers are expecting their supply partners to become more integrated into their eco-systems, be more agile as well as being able to provide unique andglobally competitive solutions for their operations. Within this context, “Air liquide has further evolved a number of its offers which aim to provide its customers with world class solutions” begins Schluep. “The first of these solutions is the Air Liquide hardgoods offeringwhich encompasses a 3 metre radius around the welder and aims to support our customers with a fully inclusive solution”. From left: Michael Ashley, Mwali Kawawa, Rolf Schluep.

“To facilitate traceability, all the delivery, stocking, purchasing, material certificate records and environmental data is stored in the Cloud. This enables supervisors and managers to monitor acquisition activity via their computers, smartphones or tablet devices,” explains Schluep.

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June 2019

AFRICAN FUSION