Thriving in the specialist world of machinery

摘要

In the world of tannery machinery manufacture the age of empires is long gone. There was a time when it was possible to equip a new tannery almost entirely from the catalogue of a single manufacturer and many tanners were happy to do so. Nowadays, although their products still soldier on in many parts of the world, the big companies are all gone. Where the brand names still survive, the current manufacturing capacity is but a shadow of what it once was. Instead, we now have a plethora of specialist manufacturers, concentrating on a few types of machine, a particular area of processing or sometimes a single design. Those equipping a new tannery today need to shop from a number of stalls in the market—the department stores are nearly all closed. The strongest manufacturers of today are those who recognised the value of specialisation early, and have honed their skills, their products and their understanding of the customers requirements over many years.