Markus: Thank you. Laserline was actually founded in 1997 by Dr. Christoph Ullmann and Mr. Volker Krause, two scientists from Fraunhofer institutes in Aachen/Germany. After 17 years of continuous growth, Laserline employs nearly 200 people, which are globally working on R&D, manufacturing, application, services and sales of our lasers. We manufacture high power diode lasers for materials processing, specialized in the area of welding metals and plastics, cladding, hardening, and surface as well as heat treatment applications. Today  Laserline is very successful in Germany, Europe, North America and Asia. China is the biggest and most important market for laser applications in Asia. Therefore the exhibition is very important for Laserline. We are launching new products, and new applications as well. 

        Laserline has been growing in the past 17 years. Every year we look forward to a further growth in general but especially as well in China. Additionally we have approached other territories. We are always trying to enhance our markets in terms of products and applications. 

Laserline headquarters is located in Germany, wher we do all the R&D, and manufacturing, and organize sales and services. We have our own company in North America, which is responsible for the American market including Canada and Mexico. Our two locations are in California and Michigan. So we can look after the eastern part areas from Michigan and look after the western part from California. We have other subsidiaries, such as in Japan, Korea and China. Therefore, we can provide our customers with all necessary services locally. Finally, we also have distributors in other countries to support us sell and service our products.

    The China market is too important and too big to run it from abroad so that we founded our own subsidiary in Shanghai specifically for customers in automotive, machine building and general manufacturing. Additionally we have some local partners here supporting us to distribute our lasers. The business is coordinated from Shanghai by Laserline China and our Headquarters in Germany.

 

Markus: Correct, here in China the market has a very high potential. The most important market for Laserline  is the automotive industry with large demand for lasers using it for car body applications like welding and brazing. We also have a huge share in laser cladding and surface treatment.

      Laserline has opportunities in all markets, e.g. in the welding sector, not only being automotive, general manufacturing, and fabrication but as well the mining and oil & gas industry. There are a lot of opportunities available for us. 

      On the other hand heat treatment, surface treatment and hardening is very interesting and successful market in other countries, but just developing in China. The selecive laser hardening of surfaces and components, specifically designed for applications of lasers can reduce manufacturing time and cost which are advantages that traditional methods cannot offer.

        Overall Laserline’s success is based on different products and supplying many applications with welding offering the biggest growth in the future. 

 

Markus: The diode laser market is actually developing very positive in China. When we entered into China some years ago, it was on a very low level. Laserline became very interested in this market, specifically in the automotive industry. We have installations in several provinces in China. Now the local manufacturers realize more and more what a diode laser can do. Laserline being the No.1 in diode lasers globally we find wide acceptance for our technology and we are proud to supply our lasers into China. 

       The market for diode laser can still develop a lot. People thinking about welding today often only consider fiber lasers, but a lot of applications can be done by diode lasers as well. So it needs re-thinking on the side of customers. That’s what we try to do, to explain the capability of diode lasers. Diode lasers can do most of the welding jobs already. With less running cost, higher wall-plug efficiency, better output in terms of the application result. We are totally convinced that the diode laser technology has a bright future. 

       But in China, as said, it is just starting. When we look to the competition, most of the time we are competing with other technologies such as fiber lasers or conventional welding methods, but not with other companies. On the other hand, China is developing its own diode lasers. We can see other companies as well here in this exhibition. We appreciate China’s efforts, because it is helping us to tell the market about the diode lasers capabilities. It’s cheaper, easier to run, less complex, has less maintenance cost, and saving energy. So I think in the next 3 to 5 years, diode lasers will create a major change here. 

4 LMN:  We know there are some other competitors in diode lasers such as DILAS, Teradiode, also Feihong Foucuslight in China, what are the advantages of Laserline to those competitors. 

Markus: With more than 2,500 diode laser systems in the market, we are defending our no. 1 position by continuous development of innovative products and implementation of new applications. Laserline is the only company to offer 5 year warranty on the diodes. Looking around this show, all other providers of diode lasers do not have the wall-plug efficiency of more than 45 % as ours.

      Reflecting the general situation in the market, we have some competitors, but not all of them deliver high power through a fiber optics. There is a kind of diode laser having a direct beam output to the workpiece. 

      Direct beam delivery has its limits, in particular in beam shaping. The beam is always rectangular or square. This creates limitations in applications wher round beam shapes are required, for instance in 2 or 3D application. 

     The almost perfect round beam with a top hat power distribution can be created by Laserline and its fiber delivery. This  shows very good results in cladding, hardening, brazing and welding. Fiber delivery allows higher flexibility, lower risk and prevents the machine or robot which is connected with the diode laser from crashes. Finally it does not matter if those lasers are slightly cheaper, lacking the application results and bearing a higher risk.

     Talking about Teradiode, they do have fiber delivery, but they focus just on higher beam quality and with this the cutting market. Hence, we are not competing with Teradiode F.

 

Markus: Diode lasers have 3 major development targets in the next years. We are going to increase the wall-plug efficiency further. Today our 4kW laser in a cladding application is hitting 48% efficiency. That’s the power taken from electricity vs the power on the work piece. Looking to the future, we will improve it to over 50%, based on some good ideas we are having. 

      The other option for diode lasers is higher power. So actually Laserline offers 20kW product on our pricelist, one of our customers has ordered a 25kW diode laser. We have a R&D program which is working on 40kW power. 40kW will be used in high speed cladding, wide area hardening wher today the laser power is limited. 

       The third area we focus on is the beam quality. Today we have beam quality which is good for 400 micron fiber into any applications. But we are increasing the beam quality further. 

      That’s the reason why we have launched our new converted diode laser, LDF 4000-8 during this exhibition. It is a standard diode laser using a converter for high beam brightness. It is the first time we show this laser in Asia. It is a very innovative product. 

Now we are offering lasers with 4kW power, and 200 micron fiber for e.g. welding applications. For LDF 4000-8, it’s wall-plug efficiency is over 30%, we are opening new applications such as remote welding. Laserline doesn’t mean to replac its current products, but expecting to open new applications with this products.

 

   

    Markus: Well, first and the most important, we bring the LDF 4000-8 as we just mentioned. The other item we show first time is inner diameter cladding for petrochemical and other industries wher we do cladding inside tubes and valves. based on the demand in China we display other products such as standard diode lasers with 10 kW of power

 

 

Markus: In 2013, we have almost doubled our sales in Asia. We were very successful in China with a high growth rate. So 2014 we still look forward to a nice growth in the market. China market may be a little difficult in 2014. People see the slow down of economy and industry. We still expect a growth rate of 20% here. It will be a tough year to achieve it. But 20% is what we set for our goal and it’s reasonable.