The organizers of the Newcomer meeting gladly accepted the invitation by Sulzer Metco, the leading supplier of thermal spray coating solutions worldwide, to meet at the company headquarters of Sulzer and Sulzer Metco in Winterthur at the end of April 2013.

The program started with a visit to the Swiss Science Center Technorama on Sunday afternoon. Here, natural phenomena can literally be touched, tried out and grasped at more than 500 experimental stations. The many labs gave us a taste of what was to come on Monday during the tour of the different Sulzer Metco halls. On Sunday evening, the remaining participants joined the group in the centre of Winterthur and all had a chance to get to know each other. It was a very pleasant evening. Once again, many thanks to the host.

The session on Monday, April 29 2013 began with a brief welcome and introductions by the participants. By this time it was clear that lots of “old hands” had come to the Newcomer meeting to readily exchange their experiences. But the large turnout, 28 external guests in total, was also due to the program and the expectation of gaining insight into the world of Sulzer Metco.

Record turnout at the Newcomer@GTS meeting in Winterthur 2013.

Richard Schmid gave an overview of Sulzer Metco in the first presentation. In addition to Sulzer Metco itself, there are three further divisions (Sulzer Pumps, Sulzer Chemtech and Sulzer Turbo Services) which belong to the Sulzer enterprise. Sulzer Metco’s product range for the thermal spray industry alone is extremely impressive. Richard’s Schmid’s overview was followed by presentations on the different test methods available (coating tests, investigations into fretting, corrosion and other damage) which were later demonstrated in the tour of the labs. Because of the large turnout, the participants split into four groups and the allotted time of two hours was just right.

After lunch, there were four further presentations on new developments at Sulzer Metco. Mr von Niessen introduced new plant equipment such as burners. Mr Tewes told us about new cold spray developments and Mr Gindrat gave us an overview of LPPS technologies (Low Pressure Plasma Spraying). The very interesting day was rounded off by Mr Girgulis who presented the SM Customer Solution Center. The four centres in Westbury, Shanghai, Tokyo und Wohlen carry out application development for customers. There was then time for a final round of discussions and afterwards Jörn Putzier and Jeroen Jutte thanked the entire Sulzer team on behalf of the GTS Newcomers for the excellent organization and very informative event. We can’t wait for the next meeting.