End of January 2017, the AHR participation (largest trade show for Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration in the US) was on punker’s agenda, already for the 6th time in a row. The presentation of the new, highly efficient punker D-Series was a home run – this year’s show in Las Vegas was all about energy efficiency.
The exposition took place in the Las Vegas Convention Center (Jan. 30 to Feb. 1, 2017). Honestly, we had some doubts if Las Vegas was the right place for an industry trade show. But only 30 minutes after the opening these doubts proved wrong: The enormous appeal of ‘fabulous Las Vegas’ brought a visitors record already on day one. Obviously, many visitors combined a visit of Las Vegas and the trade show by arriving already the weekend before.
Our booth in the Central Hall was crowded by visitors on Monday morning: Frank Mueller (Area Sales Manager North, Central and South America), Juergen Beinke (Director Global Sales) and myself had many opportunities to spread the enthusiasm for our new energy efficient D-Series. While the interest in energy efficient solutions was still low during the 2016 AHR Expo in Orlando, it had sparked very strong interest by this year.
Energy Efficiency Everywhere
The yearly survey amongst the trade show visitors by the ASHRAE Journal (monthly journal published by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers) confirmed the increased awareness of energy efficient solutions: 60,5% of the 700 respondents indicated that energy efficiency is the most important aspect for their customers (ahead: 74,2% Reliability, 70,4% Cost). Only 4% indicated that customers are not willing to pay more for energy efficiency, almost 80% confirmed the increased willingness to pay more, another 80% is actively on the lookout for ‘green’ or sustainable products on the trade show. However, only 25% of the respondents notice a support or even incentives by the state to change to energy efficient products or technologies.
By presenting ‚Increasing Energy Efficiency with the new punker Diffuser Technology’ in the New Product & Technology Theater of the AHR Expo, Frank Mueller and Juergen Beinke succeeded in demonstrating to even more trade show visitors, how the punker D-Series fan wheels increase the energy efficiency of free blowing HVAC systems and reduce the operating costs at the same time.
“Made in USA” and “America first”
Apart from energy efficiency, another aspect was a hot topic in many business discussions: The question if our products are made in USA. Already in 2016, we put a strong focus on showing that we are producing in the US. The significance of ‘made in USA’, however, has even more increased, mainly due to the ‘America first’ attitude of the Trump administration and their announcement to impose punitive tariff duties on certain imports from Germany. Whatever the reason for this question was – the fact, that punker produces in the USA for the US market is key to our successful business relations in this market.
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