January 8, 2015

Interview with Dr. Daniel J. Tschudi, Executive Vice President, Electrical Technology Business Area, WICOR Group, Switzerland

TM: Mr. Tschudi, thank you for accepting this interview. Can you, please, provide some facts and figures about the WICOR company to the readers of...

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TM: Mr. Tschudi, thank you for accepting this interview. Can you, please, provide some facts and figures about the WICOR company to the readers of Transformers Magazine?

DJT: The WICOR (WEIDMANN International Corporation) Group is, and has been for over 135 years, a leading global supplier of engineered products and services for the ELECTRICAL TECHNOLOGY and MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY business segments.

The business area WEIDMANN ELECTRICAL TECHNOLOGY develops and produces high-voltage insulation materials, components and systems as well as sophisticated diagnostics and engineering services, and sensors and monitors for transformers and transformer users.

The business area WEIDMANN MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY develops and produces sophisticated injection-moulded plastics applications for medical technology customers.

The WICOR Group is active worldwide in more than 30 locations and employs a staff of 3000. In 2013 it achieved net sales of CHF 563 million (USD 579 million).

The WICOR Group headquarters is located in Rapperswil-Jona, Switzerland.

TM: WEIDMANN is known as the leading supplier for transformer insulation worldwide. How can WEIDMANN sustain such a position in this challenging market faced by the whole transformer industry today?

DJT: It’s true that transformer prices have decreased tremendously over the last few years. Suppliers such as us are under high pressure in this industry to help our customers to make up for such shortfalls. For WEIDMANN, this means to ensure that our material, production and logistics costs are the lowest possible. Furthermore, we contribute by helping our customers to keep quality cost as low as possible by providing them with quality products and advice on how to use them the best. Quite often, we are able to propose to our customers to reduce the amount of insulation used in transformers, helping them further to become more competitive.

TM: Do you think that today we have overemphasised importance of the price on the transformer market – the price of transformers and consequently prices of materials and components? Do customers introduce significant risk by focusing predominantly on the price, often disregarding the importance of technology when evaluating available solutions?

DJT: If the focus is price only, then this leads to the wrong result. To get the highest value of a transformer, its total cost of ownership has to be the lowest possible. Price of material is only a part of the total cost. Other elements are quality cost, cost of manufacturing throughput and lifetime cost of the transformer which is influenced by maintenance costs, etc.

TM This year WEIDMANN has opened the production plant for insulation components in Gebze, Turkey. How big is this plant and which markets do you supply from there? How is it accepted by the local customers?

DJT: This new company serves the local market in Turkey and neighbouring countries. The factory has just started up and is relatively small. Due to a good customer acceptance, it is growing faster than originally expected.

TM: In May this year WEIDMANN sold the Plastics Technology A&I Division to Techniplas Group. Does this transaction influence your insulation business in any way?

DJT: In selling our Automotive and Industrial Division of our Plastics Business Area, we have reduced risk for our Group. A&I would have needed additional investments to grow further to a critical size. At this point, we see higher growth potential in the Electrical Insulation Business Area and thus prefer to invest in this area.

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