Objective report regarding the funding project „Export Bavaria 3.0 – Go International (EFRE)”

Reference number: W-002615

Factual report:

In 2014, IPS expert made the decision to become active in the Chinese market. Using our contact with the company RHX (www.rhx.com.cn), we successfully held first meetings with the Chinese foundry association. On the 23rd October in 2014, a Chinese delegation was invited to visit our company in Würzburg, Germany. This lead to further contacts with the „QME“-group, which manufactures and delivers complete foundry installations. Our ERP solution „GUSS expert“ (GUSS being the German word for casting) was consistent with the portfolio. Following that meeting in Germany, further visits in Germany and China were made. In the meantime, our whole product information and the ERP solution was being translated into Chinese, which also made it necessary to update our software to Unicode-standard. All translation was done by external specialists, including a demo version of the ERP program. Specialists were needed for the translation of special, foundry-related vocabulary. 

Negotiations were even held to possibly start a joint venture with QME, but after consulting with the law firm Roedl & Partner , a cooperation contract regarding the supply of the “GUSS expert” software in China was signed, which resulted in the forming of a on-site team in China. Various participations in exhibitions were made (2x to the foundry-specific exhibition “Metal+Metallurgy Beijing” in 2018 and 2016) and other foundry meetings (multiple visits of the Green Foundry Forum Summit, see magazine “Gießerei”, issue 01/2016, p.48). During this time, various product presentations were held at Chinese foundry businesses. This included the translation of our product manual of a few hundred pages into Chinese. 

Beginning 2017, a contract with the Chinese foundry machinery company Suzhou Suzhu Foundry Machinery Manufacture Co. Ltd. was signed (www.suzhu.cn) about a program for machine data capturing in a foundry in China. 

Ending of 2017, IPS Expert successfully signed a contract, about a pilot project for the ERP solution “GUSS expert”, with the company Dezhu Special Steel (DZTG or 德铸特钢有限公司). DZTG is part of the Qingdao Huatong State-owned Capital Operation (Group) Co. Ltd. (www.qdhuatong.com), which was formed following QME.

We hereby would also thank the European Fund for regional development of the European Union to fund this project. Reference number: W-002615