Add. Manufacturing
Würth Additive Group & Kurtz Ersa – One Team
Würth Additive Group and Kurtz Ersa are now cooperating in North America in the distribution of the Alpha 140. Following the successful market entry in the D-A-CH region, Kurtz Ersa is now targeting the North American market with the plug´n´produce entry-level model for 3D metal printing.
The Würth Additive Group is one of Würth Group’s 400 companies in over 80 different countries. With more than 32,000 sales employees worldwide, as well as the existing know-how and experience in metallic 3D printing, possibilities for sales and distribution are almost unlimited. For Kurtz Ersa, Würth Additive Group is simply the perfect partner for sales of the Alpha 140 in the North American market. After the initial contact at the RAPID + TCT 2021 additive manufacturing trade fair in Chicago in September 2021, things developed rapidly: Two months after the formnext 2021 in Frankfurt am Main, a delegation from Würth Additive came to visit us at the Demo Center in Kreuzwertheim, where the Alpha 140 was presented live in operation and a preview of the Flying Ray was given.
Alpha 140: easy handling, versatile possibilities
In the next step, the mutual enthusiasm was followed by the presentation of the Alpha 140 to the closest team at an internal Würth Additive event in Tampa, Florida, in January 2022. Everyone was enthusiastic about the simplicity of the otherwise quite complex laser-powder- bed-fusion-process and the resulting possibilities of the Alpha 140. The commitment to cooperation was very strong, and the first joint action was the presentation of the Alpha 140 at the Expo Manufactura in Monterrey, Mexico in February 2022. More than 300 visitors at the Würth Additive Group booth within three days – and the Alpha 140 as the visitor magnet – made this trade fair appearance a very successful one that whetted the appetite for more. The colleagues of the Würth Additive Group – as well as those of Kurtz Ersa – were very pleased about the first-class response of the visitors. This confirmed the Würth Additive Group in its decision in favor of Kurtz Ersa and the Alpha 140 even further. Based on all this positive experience, the signing of the contract was just a formality.
After the official signing in March 2022, the Würth Additive Group tackled the matter on the sales side: In order to be able to present the Alpha 140 directly to interested parties on site, a roadshow across North America with 17 stops was organized. In April, we successfully attended the AMUG Conference and Expo in Chicago together.
Of course, the most important trade fair in the field of additive manufacturing for the North American market was not to be missed: RAPID + TCT in Detroit in May. Here, too, we were able to convince the audience live of the Alpha 140. Further joint trade fair appearances in 2022 will follow. In addition to the trade fairs, the handling of the Alpha 140 also needs be trained and practiced. For this purpose, we were already able to have a first two-day training course at the end of April: Colleagues from the Würth Additive Group & Würth Industry from the USA, India and Germany were trained together, topics included the operation of the slicer, set-up and initial commissioning as well as the handling of metal powder and printed components.
We are convinced that this cooperation will further advance the democratization of metallic 3D printing and that we offer our North American customers a first-class product and service package for this purpose. The teams from Würth Additive and Kurtz Ersa are more than ready to get this show on the road together!