Being honest about it, no, not in that way. The last 20 years has been a series of cycles through the same issues of growth, pause, rebuff competitor attacks, develop your own growth (and attack) strategies, re-invest, peaks and valleys of PVC resin prices and start again. As for the weather, you only ever  noticed it when it interfered with sales and as regards the bright future, yes, I think self-belief and belief in the key team players made that a given.

It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was standing in a factory floor empty except for a shiny new Battenfeld extruder. It was sitting there together with a few Tonne bags of trial material and with  workmen starting to instal basic equipment. It has been a long but never tedious journey to our current set up where we have 21 extruders and several injection moulding machines on 2 strategically located sites. Long on the calendar but so so rapid in the passing. In the meantime we have seen our competitors dwindle in number from 13 or 14 to just 3 significant players left in our particular ‘route to market’.

Most competitors fell away or were taken over or needed to be financially re-engineered arising from failed gambles that low prices would drive volumes to economic levels. It would seem that they did not have a true handle on their real costs and paid the price. This has been replicated up and down the chain from resin producers through compounders down to stockists and installers.

There has been very little innovation in new product types or applications but considerable variety introduced to profile shapes. The rare exception has been that over the last few years we have seen a continuing growth in demand for colour whether as a skin colour or a foil.

I would guess that the failure by the market in general to generate greater innovation and speculative products relates to the very poor return on investment through the years allied to the high maintenance and capital cost of equipment.

That was then, this is now. Here we are right in the middle of an economic storm.  My view is:  “so what’s new”.  Same problems, same issues, but we go forward, glass half full, looking for the opportunities created by fortune or left by our competitors. The more things change, the more they stay the same!

The trail was a temporary installation, beginning in the centre of Cork City with the Sun located at St Patrick’s Bridge and ends with Neptune at Blackrock Castle Observatory.   The inner planets of the Solar System, Mercury, Venus and Earth, fit along Merchant’s Quay with Mars situated at the Bus Station, Jupiter located at Victoria Road, Saturn at Centre Park Road (Freefoam) and Uranus at The Marina.

The Solar System Trail through Cork City

For the duration of the trail, a framed banner of Saturn, created by local Cork artist Marianne Keating, hung at the entrance to the Freefoam facility on Centre Park Road.

It was a wonderful idea, and a great way to explore Cork and learn about our Solar System at the same time.   Hopefully we will see the trail return to Cork (and Freefoam) as part of a permanent installation in the not-too-distant future.

(The BCO do run a lot of other activities.  Check them out at http://www.bco.ie/ )

Zolo? Who is this "Zolo" character?

Every blogger worth their salt does an annual “5 Predictions for the coming year” blog post.  A post that is then inevitably revisited at the end of the year where said blogger explains why their wildly inaccurate forecasts seemed like a good idea at the time.

Also, seeing as how it’s the middle of February, this is a little late.   But no matter, let us proceed…

My Top-5 Predictions for the Roofline Market in 2010:

1. PVC Resin prices will rise and fall and rise dramatically during the year. Prices are close to historic levels now and are over £100 a tonne over average historic prices.  I predict £50 increase at years end with more than £150 peak rise during the year.
2. Extrusion companies will increase prices by a headline 8% – 10% and fail to hold most of it due to desperation price cutting by a one or two companies teetering on the edge.
3. Colour demand will grow dramatically.
4. Market volume will contract by 5%
5. A small growth in the number of  independent stockists as the larger group companies tighten up, close some depots and let ambitious staff go.

So there you have it.  Palmistry or crystal ball gazing, would probably produce just as accurate a result.  We shall see.

I’d be interested to hear what anyone else thinks!

Now these machines do all the work

The Freefoam Blog has landed at last.  It only took a decade, but I was too busy doing other stuff.  Like working.   Now these machines do all the work, and the utopian future no one ever predicated has arrived.  Stay tuned.