Started in the year 1993 by Battista Faraotti, Fainplast is headquartered in Ascoli Piceno, Italy and has a worldwide presence. The company specializes in the production of a plastic compound which has diverse applications in a plethora of sectors.
In an interview with Wire & Cable India, Mr. Joshua Bruni, Foreign Sales, Fainplast Srl talks about the trends in the cable compounds sector, developments regarding their capacity expansion and the positive trends regarding the new crosslinkable elastomer compounds.
Excerpts:
Wire & Cable India: Could you tell us a little bit about your company and the product portfolio?
Joshua Bruni: Fainplast is a specialized producer of compounds for cables based in Italy with one of the most comprehensive range of products in the world. With an annual production of almost 100,000 tonnes of compound, Fainplast is the market leader in the production of LSZH thermoplastic and Thermosetting compounds and offers to its customers a wide range of PVC, PP, PE and Elastomer compounds for cables.
WCI: What kind of trends do you see with regard to cable compounds at present and their varied applications?
With an annual production of almost 100,000 tonnes of compound, Fainplast is the market leader in the production of LSZH thermoplastic and Thermosetting compounds.
JB: The cable market is living a long term growth trend of all halogen-free compounds and for this reason, our company constantly invests every year in new equipment in order to increase its production capacity in this area. In the previous year, we had doubled our production capacity of HFX compounds (Halogen-free, flame retardant crosslinkable compounds) with the installation of 3 new compounding lines. We see most customers are now moving towards speciality cables and are searching for innovative materials that allow them to enter into a new business without huge investment in new equipment. For this reason, we see a considerable uptrend of all crosslinkable materials that are based on Sioplas technology.
WCI: Please share some new developments at your end.
We see most customers are now moving towards speciality cables and are searching for innovative materials that allow them to enter into a new business without huge investment in new equipment.
JB: We have recently achieved good results with new Sioplas crosslinkable Elastomers. It is a family of products that is unique in the market and that allows our customers in several applications to compete against the well-consolidated CCV technology in terms of productivity and flexibility in cable design.
WCI: According to you, what are the challenges and the opportunities in the respective sectors you serve?
JB: The main challenge in the next years will be the reconversion of all cables to Halogen free since LSZH compounds still have many limits in terms of mechanical properties and resistance to external agents. This is, of course, a challenge but is also an opportunity for everyone who is focusing on overcoming the current technical limits of these materials. Many sectors that do not use these kinds of materials at the moment will surely move to LSZH in the next few years.
Our company has one of the most advanced laboratories of R&D in the compound business and is consistently engaged in the development of new solutions that will become in future the benchmark for the entire market.
WCI: Furthermore, what extra efforts do you undertake to support your customers?
In the previous year, we had doubled our production capacity of HFX compounds (Halogen-free, flame retardant crosslinkable compounds) with the installation of 3 new compounding lines.
JB: As part for our constant commitment to products innovation, we constantly seek for improvement of our production plant because we are primarily a producer. We target increased production flexibility and higher levels of automation to improve our productivity and ability to produce more different products. We also work to simplify our processes and improve efficiency while reducing the total lead-time from the customer order. We ensure to execute these processes while giving utmost consideration to the health and wellness of the people working in the company who certainly play a key role and enable us to give an added value to our products and services.
