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INDEX Awards are a show highlight
For another edition, INDEX 11 closed its doors with record-breaking results, confirming its title as“The world’s leading nonwovens exhibition,” with a diversity of products and services on offer, from all sectors of the market—from machinery and raw materials to converted products.
More than 12,600 visitors made their way through the doors of the Geneva Palexpo exhibition center, intent to see the 530 exhibitors from 43 countries in over 21,600 square meters of stand space across 50,000 square meters of exhibition halls.
Visitors attending the show, which ran from April 12-15, 2011 were able to engage with a larger portion of the industry than ever before, as well as take advantage of the special events organized during the exhibition.Special events focused on innovation, nonwovens in packaging and product presentations, as well as introductory lunchtime tutorials to provide an overview of the world-famous EDANA training courses.
“For an industry which has just started to show signs of recovery—now finally rising to levels above those recorded before the global financial crisis, we can be incredibly proud.This challenging commercial context spurred the nonwovens industry, already renowned for its creativity and development, to be even more innovative, and companies are investing in sustainable activities which not only bring a positive effect to the world we live in but also secure the industry for the future,” said Pierre Wiertz, general manager of EDANA, the sponsor of INDEX.
Exhibitors shared their delight with the quality of the attendees visiting the show, alongside feedback from visitors who were pleased with the breadth and depth of the exhibitors on offer, covering the entire chain from machinery and raw materials producers to converters and providers of added-value treatments and processes.
A European visitor stated that “This is most definitely the best show yet”— a sentiment echoed by an exhibitor who commented that“As an industry player who wants to not just survive but grow, you can’t afford not to come to INDEX.”Several exhibitors also reported growing numbers of high-level enquiries from Latin America and Africa.
Comments were also received from visitors from the Americas and Asia, with individuals paying tribute to the organization of the show in terms of the ease of finding those companies they wanted to see: “Having travelled so far, I really need to make sure that I can prove the value of my visit.I’m here for three days, and by the end of the first day I was reporting back to my boss about how next time we should all come!This has been a great show for us professionally, and I’ve managed to speak to all of the people that I needed to contact, with enough time to visit one of the workshops – unexpected value that I am very happy about, and I know my boss will be very happy too.”
INDEX 11 Awards
The innovation highlight of the exhibition was undoubtedly the unveiling of the winners of the INDEX 11 Awards. These EDANA-sponsored Awards are among the highest accolades for excellence in the industry and highlight examples of some of the best innovations from businesses of all sizes and from all levels of the nonwovens supply chain.
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Award winners included companies from all areas of the nonwovens supply chain. |
Seven Awards, covering categories from product and process innovations to marketing brilliance, were presented to the winning companies during a special ceremony on the first day of the INDEX 11 exhibition.
In the nonwoven roll goods category, Freudenberg Nonwovens recieved an award for Lutraflor, an automotive carpet for cars, trucks and buses. Exceeding traditional needlepunched or tufted carpet materials, Lutraflor is an innovative new roll good media with high product quality performance. Lutraflor carpet offers a luxurious appearance along with high wear as well as other performance characteristics such as abrasion resistance.
The composite of spunlaid and staple fibre fabric is made of recycled PET raw material. Keeping in mind that carpet concepts have to balance cost, weight, performance and sustainability, Lutraflor delivers clear advantages in modern automotive flooring: Customers are allowed to address vehicle key performance metrics such as cost, weight and recyclability without having to make sacrifices to appearance and performance.
In the category of finished products made from nonwovens, PGI Nonwovens was awarded for its SafeCover Insect Repellant Blanket.
“Social benefits (protection of people in disease-infected areas during or after a crisis), real innovation (new delivery of insecticide) and a great choice of partners to effectively reach the targeted population make this product worthy of an award,” are some of this product’s attributes.
For marketing achievement for the most original marketing campaign for a product made from or incorporating nonwovens— Colquímica won for the Creating Happy People Campaign. “Creating Happy People is rewarded for its originality, creativity and the diversity of deliverables and examples of nonwovens used in a way that is effective for the campaign’s purpose. Not another boring marketing operation.”
In raw materials or components, Dow Europe won for the Primal Econext 210 binder, a formaldeheyde-free binder that delivers a much appreciated solution for the industry to address a previously challenging regulatory requirement.
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This year’s INDEX award. |
Additionally, several companies were rewarded in the new sustainable category because the jury felt that entries for the Sustainability awards had very positive aspects and improvements but that no individual submission showed decisive, breakthrough progress towards sustainability understood in a comprehensive way.In the sustainable process or management practice, PGI Nonwovens won for the PGI Sustainability Process; 3M for Pollution Prevention Pays (3P) Program andTredegar won for itsFlowertool, a method for measuring environmental impact was awarded. “Tredegar’s Flowertool brings a significant contribution to the supply chain by making a tool available to many companies. This helps spread the understanding of sustainability and Life Cycle Assessment methodology.”
INDEX 2014: Plans Already Underway
INDEX 2014, to be held once again in Geneva, Switzerland, will show, the industry continues to have a long, bright future ahead of it.INDEX 14 will take place from April 8-11, 2014 at the Geneva Palexpo exhibition halls.
