Insight

A review and preview of the global fastener industry

A wide cross section of global fastener business leaders have contributed their retrospective of 2015 and thoughts on the prospects and challenges for 2016. We asked them to consider not just economic and financial issues but also technology drivers for the fastener industry and to identify priorities for the upcoming year. Here is F. REYHER Nchfg GmbH & Co KG's article:

F. REYHER Nchfg GmbH & Co KG
Klaus-Dieter Schmidt, general manager

Triggered by the worldwide crisis, the unstable international economic state has had a negative impact in many sectors. The OECD figures for economic growth in the Euro region for 2015 have also been revised downwards to only 1.5%. At the same time the German economy is expected to grow more, due to robust consumption and considerable immigration.

Despite this, all these factors have had a not inconsiderable influence on our worldwide trading. Although our mix of sectors has been a great advantage, since not all have been affected equally by the crisis. Our business development has consequently remained stable at a high level. A survey carried out by the Federation of German Wholesale, Foreign Trade & Services (BGA) in July 2015 shows considerable improvement in the wholesale environment. Economic development has remained stable, thanks to the good situation in the job market and strong consumption – the mood is proving positive. We are concentrating on our strengths – product range and logistics. With the construction of a new 42m high bay warehouse capable of holding 40,000 pallets, with an integrated logistics and administration building, we are further improving our logistics prerequisites at our central location in Hamburg, Germany. In addition, we will also continue developing our value-added services – enabling us to offer our customers future-oriented services covering the needs of tomorrow. Especially in the e-business sector, where we offer a range of solutions from individual customer-specific electronic catalogues to EDI connections for direct business data interchange. We want to make the procurement process much simpler for our customers. Experience over that last few years has shown that in our market segment kitting and packaging is gaining increasingly in importance. Here too, REYHER’s comprehensive offering ranges from individually compiled sets in poly bags, specific packaging or labelling to whole kits on pallets with pre-determined package sequencing. To be able to act successfully in the market, it is not enough to offer a standard product range that can be delivered fast. The market demands versatile solutions around the main product. The range extends beyond e-business and kitting and packaging issues, or customer-specific Kanban solutions with or without RFDI support, to daily or project-relevant technical consulting at all levels.