Whether it's special ribbon wires for airport runways, carbon fiber wires for measuring the heart position in heart measurement devices or heliax wires for 5G aerials or routers. There is almost nothing that the Schleuniger TechSales team can't do for its customers with regard to processing special wires or implementing highly specialist requests. This is reflected in the figures: Of 200 to 400 enquiries that the team receive every month, only 20 - 30 can't be resolved with a positive result. In terms of an individual solution that enables customers to use a Schleuniger Cut-&-Strip standard machine for processing of challenging wires thanks to minor modifications in the blade, guides or software tools. Regardless of which industry the customer request comes from, because: Although the Schleuniger standard machines and solutions are mainly used in specific areas, the adaptation options are enormous. With the required creativity and experience. As brought to the table by Beat Jaussi, who has been part of the TechSales team since 2010 and knows the Schleuniger machines and solutions inside out. In the following interview, he describes the enquiries he and the team are confronted with, gives examples of successfully implemented customer wishes and explains why it only takes a few weeks for customers to receive the requested solution.

Beat Jaussi, you and the team in the Schleuniger TechSales department receive between 2500 and 4800 customer enquiries relating to processing special wires every year. What type of enquiries do you receive?
We receive numerous enquiries from a wide range of sectors. Schleuniger is fundamentally a company that develops machines to process wires. That is our core area of expertise. Our goal is to be able to provide a suitable solution for every requirement or wire so that customers can process their wires according to their wishes and requirements. However, these wires can vary greatly in terms of size, shape and design, which is why the Schleuniger standard solutions can not take into account all possible scenarios. A microcoaxial wire, for example, can not be processed in the same ways as a power electronic solar wire. Different solution approaches are required depending on whether a wire contains copper, aluminium, glass, Kevlar or steel. Customers sometimes also come to us with requests that have nothing at all to do with wire processing. I remember a customer who wanted to cut joint tape for window seals to a specific length or a bicycle manufacturer who needed to cut and insulate steel brake wires.

All such enquires come to our department. Ideally, they are only the really challenging scenarios for which there is no standard solution available. In the vast majority of cases, we can offer a solution. But there are sometimes also customer wishes that are not realistic and for which we can only provide a partial solution. But this is relatively rare.

How do you approach new enquiries when you receive them?
Based on our experience, we can usually estimate extremely quickly which direction things are going to take and which machine with which equipment would be suitable for our customer's wishes. For nine out of ten samples we receive, we can make an assessment at the desk based on our experience. If we are not completely certain, we carry out tests on our test machines and look into what's possible. If the applications are slightly more complex – for example if multiple work steps with cutting, separating, shortening and striping a wire are required – we sit down and work out how many programming steps and blades are required to program the wire according to the specifications and drawings of the customer (see image gallery). If we are commissioned to carry out the job, we usually have special blades produced and test the application in detail on-site at our premises.

Your place of work in anything but monotonous and boring.
That's right. Coming up with new and innovative solutions requires creativity and a certain level of passion and enthusiasm for the material. That's exactly what inspires me about my job. We are challenged every day, have to constantly think outside the box and must be extremely flexible in our approach to finding solutions. I can remember a case where we had to place wires in the freezer for a short time to ensure that they could be processed precisely and correctly. This was because the wire could not be transported due to its extremely high flexibility and only cooling to minus temperatures achieved the desired result. Coming up with a solution like this isn't easy and requires lots of experience and creativity. I would go as far as to say that whenever new challenges or even industries arise anywhere in the world, we in the Schleuniger TechSales team are among the first to hear about it.

Can you give concrete examples of implemented solutions?
Of course. Sometimes the solution is really simple, like in the case of a multifunctional wire with integrated cooling lines, which was pressed into an oval shape on the coil by its own weight (see image gallery). This meant it was impossible to cut the insulation with conventional blades so that the outer sheath could be removed without touching the insulated conductor and even sustaining an injury in the worst case. We managed to solve the problem by producing blades with «shoulders». With these blades, the shoulder was adapted to the outer sheath of the wire. So it presses the wire back into its original round shape and thus enables precise cutting of the insulation and easy removal of the outer sheath.

One example of a challenging request was a ribbon wire to be used on airport runways that had to have a window every 30 millimeters so that sensors could be installed. These sensors monitor whether water has accumulated somewhere on the track that needs to be cleaned away. We developed an ultra-simple software tool for this, where only the start and the number of window repetitions have to be input. Without our solution, the customer would have to program each window individually across all kilometers of runway manually, which would have been an almost insurmountable task. Thanks to our software tool, programming is limited to around 10 minutes per wire (see image gallery).

What is the most specialist request you have ever implemented for a customer?
I would say that would have to be the production of granule for barrel finishing, i.e. smooth grinding of dials in luxury watches. A Swiss manufacturer of luxury watches asked us whether it would be possible to cut copper wires in a specific angle to a specific length. We helped the customer by designing small adapters for the blade holder with the specified angle. Thanks to these special adapters, the customer can produce the granule in-house in its factory on our smallest fully automatic wire processing machine (see image gallery).

How long does it take until customers can produce the desired wire or end product with a specially configured standard machine?
⁠Many customers and sometimes even our worldwide representations shy away when projects or applications are mentioned. Because they assume that this requires extensive clarifications, including feasibility studies and requirements specifications and involves long wait times and costs. But this isn't the case at all. The wire sampling offered by the Schleuniger TechSales team is free and, in most cases, our customers can start producing their special applications within four to eight weeks. This is because standard machines are used in most cases and only adjustments with regard to blades and guides are required. So we can implement even challenging requests quickly.

What should customers do if they have special requirements and contact the TechSales team?
Our customers usually contact our sales organizations in their country first, where the request is evaluated to determine whether it is a standard request or whether our support is required. In 80 percent of causes, our colleagues can offer a suitable solution. If this is not the case, we either receive the requirements and drawings of the desired wire or end product directly from the customer or from our sales departments. So it's important to contact us, even if there's no obvious solution available. If a customer only searches for a solution for processing a special or challenging wire on the data sheets for our standard machines or website, for example, they will only see a fraction of the options we can actually offer.