Hilti officials demonstrate the company’s range of new products.
Hilti puts innovative prowess on show
Hilti, a Liechenstein-based leading construction systems and solutions provider, is set to further invest in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region, especially on the back of double-digit growth in sales, writes Salvador Almeida.
01 December 2007
Unprecedented development in the Arabian Gulf is prompting Hilti Corporation to pay more attention towards capitalising on the need for tools and related services in the area.
The Near East, Middle East and South Asia region accounted for double-digit growth in sales in the first eight months of this year, when compared to the corresponding period in 2006, a climb the company estimated to have been the highest for any region.
Chief executive officer Bo Risberg said the Gulf did particularly well with the UAE showing the best results in the sub-region.
“We’ll invest more in the Middle East,” he told Gulf Construction during the Hilti Innovation Day event at the company’s headquarters in Liechtenstein, adding there would be priority for personnel and the sales network.
Risberg noted that while earlier the Gulf economy was driven by oil and gas, it was now strengthened by a broader base including housing, infrastructure, manufacturing, transportation and logistics. That translated to a lot of potential for a tools company like Hilti, he said.
Hilti tools that enjoyed good demand in the Gulf were anchoring and safety-related products.
Risberg said anchoring products were “a big element” with Hilti providing engineers with the right set for each application. He added that the company had also seen strong growth in installations systems required for building services as well as in firestop devices.
At a time when construction of commercial and industrial buildings was proceeding with a rare frenzy in the Gulf, the need to seal off facades, for example, from fire leaks was paramount, he said.
Hilti had developed top fire-stopping technology and was producing breakthrough products of the highest class, Risberg remarked.
At the Innovation Day event, the company demonstrated the Hilti CP 660, a single-system solution for firestopping and smokesealing. This universal firestop foam is supplied in foil packs that allow quick, easy application using Hilti HIT system dispensers. CP 660 is regarded as the new standard for the installation of firestop seals in all small- to medium-sized cable and pipe penetrations.
Another area where Risberg said Hilti had done remarkably well in the Gulf was the supply of fastening elements for steel and concrete. At the event, Hilti unveiled a new system incorporating the SD5000 drywall screwdriver and the SMD57 screw magazine and where performance was twice as fast as a previous model.
But Risberg did not think the time was as yet ripe for having a full-fledged Hilti plant in the Gulf.
He said the partnership with local firm Global Fasteners would continue and production would be hiked as and when demand for specific varieties increased. New items would be introduced at the plant to withstand competition.
Risberg said Hilti had unique offerings including laser tools for measuring and corrosion-protection products suitable for the petrochemicals and offshore and onshore oil and gas installations. Among the recently developed products demonstrated at the event was the Hilti X-BT which helps fastening to pre-painted steel without damaging the protective coating. It is designed to work on construction steels as thin as 8 mm (5/16”) in environments where corrosion is an issue.
Speaking to guests at the Innovation Day event, Risberg said “the tireless search for new possibilities has been a hallmark of the company”.
“Hilti has introduced and continuously improved technologies which have revolutionised the market, such as electro-pneumatic hammering, low-velocity powder-actuated fastening, chemical anchoring, reinforcement bar detection and electric diamond wall sawing,” he said.
“Innovation, however, has never been limited to technologies and products but also includes services which help our customers work more productively and safety and ensure that the optimum solution is used for each application.”
Risberg said one of the key sources of innovative power at Hilti was the practice where its work science and ergonomics specialists all but lived on the construction sites together with the users of its products. “They employ work flow analysis and time studies and make use of video cameras to record possibilities for improving some of the fundamentals,” he said.
He said Hilti’s technology radar included monitoring and influencing building technologies and methods as well as the regulatory environment.
“We are, for example, currently monitoring trends such as ecological construction, intelligent buildings, pre-assembly and precasting, self-compacting and high-strength concrete, supply chain collaboration, private-public partnerships, building lifecycle costing approaches, health and safety and many more.
“These kinds of trends all provide opportunities for innovation through new products, technologies and services.”
Dr Pius Baschera, chairman of the Hilti Corporation board, gave an insight into the Hilti approach. “A few years ago, for example, we studied the question of how to simplify and quicken the installation of cable ducts. The first analysis pointed out that we should concentrate on measuring and drilling. Our following research showed that most of the time at construction sites was not spent on drilling, but on measuring and positioning the correct drilling spot. The improvement potential that we identified therefore focused solely on measuring. We then intensively studied laser-based positioning tools and founded a business unit to handle the work,” he said.
The measurements are more exact and, depending on tool type, can be directly transferred to a computer via Bluetooth, he said.
“We always want to be a step ahead. Our products and services should always offer more than average. More quality, more comfort, more safety, more efficiency, more profitability. We want to surprise the customer by producing the thing they first envisioned, such as this laser range meter that has just come on the market.
“It doesn’t get any smaller, more compact or simpler than this. But this laser range meter is also robust and water resistant. Sometimes our salespeople throw it in water to demonstrate this,” he added.
At the event, Hilti highlighted testing procedures and a range of its recently-developed products as well as its health and safety solutions including the specification and engineering software, Active Vibration Reduction, the Hilti Power Effect, Active Torque Control in which tool operations stop before the user gets into a twist and dust removal systems.
