CompositesWorld
Issue link: https://cw.epubxp.com/i/866813
TRENDS SEPTEMBER 2017 30 CompositesWorld COMP_CEM_PUB_COMPOSITE-WORLD Fire properties Ecological Rot-proof +1 772-344-0034 contact@compositeessentials.com www.compositeessentials.com 11 th > 14 th Sept. 19 th > 21 st Sept. Editor's note: CW launched in June 2017 CW Talks: The Composites Podcast, featuring inter- views with composites industry thinkers and doers. This Q&A; is an excerpt from Episode 6 of CW Talks in which Austin discusses everything from selling composites into the aerospace industry in the 1990s to working with marine composites to working with specialized composites today. You can catch the full inter- view at www.compositesworld.com/podcast, or on iTunes or Google Play. CW: Do you see automation as an imperative to the growth of the industry? JA: I think it is. When we look at China, Vietnam and the Far East, those economies aren't going backward. They're going forward, and it means the people will learn more, and the low-cost, dollar-a-day Chinese worker putting carbon fiber in a mold to make a tennis racquet or a golf shaft is not forever. But people are still used to buying a US$70 carbon fiber tennis racquet that has been sold to a shop for US$35 that's been sold to a whole- saler for US$20. So, the end-user economics aren't changing . . .. And when you think of markets such as the automotive market, I don't see how composites will be able to compete in the long term, without incorporating serious automation into the processes. CW: How would you define "serious automation"? JA: Automation for me would be [fiber] off a creel, and out of some dispensing for the matrix side of things, into a part. That's how I would define serious automation — in mass-produced, 100,000-models- a-year Ford Focus- or Volkswagen -type volumes. Q&A;: James Austin, CEO, North Thin Ply Technology