Next up for our speaker interviews is Brandy Herrmann, Senior Business Development Engineer for Sikora.

Brandy Herrmann is the Senior Business Development Engineer for the Hose and Tube Division of SIKORA International Corporation. SIKORA is a world-renowned leader in providing quality assurance measurement systems for the production of wires and cables, hoses, tubes, pipes and sheets, optical fibers or plastics. Their experts develop intelligent measuring and control technologies, inspection, analysis and sorting systems for many areas of the industrial production. Brandy focuses on analyzing existing and potential markets to identify a need for SIKORAs technologies in the US and Canada.

How do you see the industry developing and growing in the next three-to-five years?

Technology is the future of this industry, and in the next 3 to 5 years, you will see a large influx of new technologies entering the manufacturing world. With the challenges across the industry for higher quality, customer demand for more data and a decreased labor force, investments in technology will be essential for many manufacturers.

What do you consider to be the biggest challenges facing the industry at the moment?

Meeting demand. A drastic increase in the need for the products (i.e., infrastructure needs, etc.) with a significant decrease in labor workforce seems to be the biggest challenge in the industry at the moment. This opens up the opportunity to companies to start looking into alternatives for keeping up with production. This is a large culture shift for many companies and will include impactful changes to how current business/manufacturing is done. 

You will be speaking at AMI’s plastics industry expos in the US in November, could you give us a preview on what you will be talking about?

The most exciting development in this industry is the deep dive into developing sustainable products and processes. Addressing the needs of the consumer without damaging the environment, health and economy is just the responsible alternative.  Developing these technologies, resins, processes, etc. are advantageous for everyone. 

Brandy will be presenting an industry presentation on 'Keeping an eye on dimensions: X-ray technology for a continuous quality control during the extrusion of tubes and pipes' at the Plastic Extrusion World Expo Conference 2022.