“The ‘Open Your Mind’ seminar exceeded all our expectations,” says George Glaze at SSAB Swedish Steel in the UK after the first ever seminar of this kind was held in Birmingham in November last year.
The intention with this “Open Your Mind” seminar was to give designers, material and other technical specialists from the automotive industry an opportunity to meet their counterparts from SSAB Swedish Steel.
“Comments from the participants proved the seminar was a big success,” he continues.
With “Open Your Mind”, SSAB explains how advanced high strength steels can increase the competitiveness of car manufacturers. The seminar gives general information about advanced high strength steels in the automotive industry, but the main focus, achieved by showing practical examples, is to provide very detailed technical knowledge about how to design, form and join these steels.
“This gave a good basis for the very detailed face-to-face discussions that developed when the participants met our experts in design, joining, forming and applications during the day,” says George Glaze.
He is referring to the meetings around the exhibition of automotive parts that is an important part of the seminar.
“Every component in this display shows a part that is manufactured from advanced high strength steel,” George Glaze explains. “They are all excellent examples of the advantages that can be achieved with this type of steel.”
Advanced high strength steels are often used to reduce weight and to improve crashworthiness of cars. Lower weight has an immediate effect in reduced fuel consumption and CO2-emissions.
There are important reasons why the first “Open Your Mind” seminar is tailor-made for car manufacturers and their suppliers.
“By focusing on the special demands from this sector, we can go deeper into each subject,” explains Mikael Mitros, sales manager at SSAB Swedish Steel after the second seminar, that was held in Gothenburg.
More than 100 participants, representing a major part of the automotive industry in each country, attended these first two seminars.
“Due to a wide communication spectrum through media, web, invitations and other channels, we met people and companies from the automotive field that have not used these steels in the past, but wanted more information to focus on them in the future,” George Glaze explains. The evaluation after the seminar confirms that the content was very appreciated.
“But also the venue,” says George Glaze. “The seminar took place at the centrally located National Motorcycle Museum.”
One of the ideas with the “Open Your Mind” seminar is to create a channel for direct dialog between Customers and the specialists at SSAB.
“It really did,” says George Glaze. “Afterwards, we got comments like “I enjoyed the opportunity to meet SSAB’s technicians,” “well balanced information” and “This makes marketing of advanced high strength steel more trustworthy”.
During 2006 there will be “Open Your Mind” seminars in Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, the US and Brazil. Other worldwide markets like Asia, South Africa, etc., are under planning.
Bildtext1: Studies of the car parts in the exhibition caused a löot of discussions regarding material as well as production technique. "Open Your Mind" seminars have created a dialog between technical specialists in the car industry and their counterpart in SSAB.
Bildtext2: Car parts displaying the benefits of producton with advanced high strength steels.
Text: News Magazine No 1, 2006