The voice of businessmen: Candor Sweden

In the wake of our column dedicated to the interviews with the protagonists of the field, we spoke to Mr John Lindh, Sales & Marketing Director of Candor Sweden AB, the supplier of cleaning and plating plants for wire and chemicals for various applications. We asked him to take stock of the current situation of the company and the global market, being a partner of many wire drawing mills in the whole world.

Is this a good moment for Candor?
It definitely is. We are experiencing a great interest in our company and products for wire cleaning & plating equipment. We are currently working on many orders for big projects to e.g. Mexico, USA, Germany, Holland, Sweden, India, Malaysia, Russia and South Korea.

Which kind of equipment is attracting more attention?
At the moment nearly half of the requests are for cleaning and coating equipment for welding wire, both stainless and copper coated. It's the equipment we call Copperjet. It all started some 10-15 years ago, but now the plant is highly requested and considered by many to be the best in the market. We also receive many requests for our high speed hot water spray cleaning unit Candojet, a product we've had for many years which is now more popular than ever. Wire cleaning is nowadays an issue of growing importance to many of our customers.
Wire cleaning in general is always something Candor is asked about. We have always projects going on for ultrasonic or electrolytic cleaning of wires as well.
We have also a great interest in Candor's electrolytic plating lines for wires. Candor has built wire plating lines for more than 45 years and can today offer nickel, silver, tin, copper and zinc plating lines for copper, stainless and carbon steel wires for various applications.

You supply your equipment and plants to many different countries. Which are the most promising markets?
The situation for us is particularly favorable, as the Swedish krona has dropped compared to Euro and dollars. American customers, for example, can today buy our products with a much better price in comparison with a few years ago. This fact in combination with our highly ranked company and equipment shows well in our order books. The second largest market is Europe, where especially Germany is among our biggest outlets. Then of course Asia is a market where Candor always has been very strong.

How is the situation for the wire and cable market in the Scandinavian countries?
The wire segment is a niche market here, so we export between 80 and 90% of our production. For wire cleaning and plating equipment we are no. 1. here. To our Scandinavian customers we can offer a complete package with equipment, chemicals and also wire lubricants from Condat. Candor represents Condat s lubricants in the Scandinavian market.

What is the most recent technical innovation you worked on?
There are two units we are particularly proud of: Copperjet, which is an in-line copper coating plant for welding wire directly after dry drawing processes, and of course our high speed cleaning lines for stainless steel welding wires.
Our advanced nickel, silver and tin plating lines for copper and copper alloy wires have many interesting technical solutions for high quality conductors and similar wires.
Where do your competitors come from?
Mainly from Europe.
What makes Candor different?
We make high quality machines and give a good service to our customers. Our lines are designed for a reliable production at very high wire speed. Due to the fact that Candor is a chemical supplier with a advanced knowledge in different chemical processes we have been able to implement this know-how into our machines. We know how to build machines, we've been doing this for 70 years, we're celebrating our anniversary this year.
70 years! Many things have changed in your business in this time.
Yes, some chemicals are now forbidden, some have been replaced... of course it's essential to stay up-to-date. But the biggest developments are customer-driven. Companies have less space now, they ask for faster and faster machines but with higher and higher quality and reliability. The market is more demanding today, and we've been evolving together with today's requests - and the ones of tomorrow.
What challenges will your specific sector - surface treatment and metal finishing - be facing in the near future?
The debate on the use of acids is of course a hot topic. But we think that acids and chemicals will be playing an important role also in the future. The challenge is in many ways to make it safe for the operators to handle chemicals and to let our machines consume as little chemicals as possible for the sake of our environment. We are engaged in an ongoing development to make our equipment safe, keeping our environment always in mind. Candor can offer a complete solution with also equipment to clean dirty process water and use it again back into our plants.

More information about Candor's treatment equipment for wire at this link >>