AfriMold hosts trade fair and tooling conference

Running in conjunction with the fair is the AfriMold Conference on tooling and manufacturing. Hosted by the Toolmaking Association of South Africa (TASA), the conference will address important issues facing the industry, such as production management, intellectual property, registered designs, effective business and legal contracts, global competitiveness, training, skills development and employment creation.

The theme of the year is 'Enabling for Tomorrow' with tooling as a key enabler for the South African manufacturing sector, and will include various speakers such as international and local specialists in tooling technology and related fields.

Visitors are proactive buyers

Ron MacLarty, managing director of AfriMold says the specialised nature of the event attracts a highly targeted audience of visitors, who are mainly proactive buyers. He says the expo's visitors have made a conscious decision to purchase and have set aside valuable time to attend the event and do just that. The reality of a serious and willing buyer coming directly to the supplier is probably the single most important reason why exhibitors choose to participate in the conference.

"Added benefits include the interactive nature of expos offering the opportunity for one-on-one sales and promotion, face-to-face contact with customers, fast market penetration and the opportunity to evaluate market trends and customer need. Industry support for the conference has been tremendous from the outset and it has fast become the annual meeting place for the industry in Africa," says MacLarty.

Design competition for students

The role of design will play an important part of AfriMold. Plastics|SA, the Plastics Converters Association and the Plastics Institute of South Africa will feature a major design competition for Industrial Design students from a number of participating universities. Here the brief is to design a mobility system for the rural areas, to enable easy collection of plastics waste material that will be recycled, preventing it from polluting the environment.

Novel solutions will be sought to demonstrate how this activity could mitigate climate change through recycling and re-use of materials. Second year students of University of Johannesburg, Wits University, Cape Peninsula University of Technology and Tshwane University of Technology will be competing for the coveted AfriMold/PISA Design Award.