This year’s members’ meeting of the MMFA – the Multilayer Modular Flooring Association – attracted some 80 attendees who came to learn about the latest developments in the industry and the current status of Association projects. This meeting of stakeholders, held in Mönchengladbach on 25 & 26 April, was hosted by associate members Ungricht and Saueressig Design Studio. Three new associate members were welcomed into the MMFA, and as per schedule a new Executive Board was elected.
The MMFA General Assembly confirmed Mr Matthias Windmöller (Windmöller GbmH) as Chairman of the Board for a further two years of office. After six successful years with the MMFA, Founding Chairman Volker Kettler (MeisterWerke Schulte) did not stand for re-election. Members thanked him with long applause, showing their appreciation of his commitment and pioneering work in technical areas, standardisation, research and development. Mr Kettler’s duties as Vice President and Chairman of the Technical Committee have now been taken over by Executive Board member Sebastian Wendel (Akzenta/Classen Gruppe), former Chairman of the Market Development Committee. Carl Ruland was newly-elected to the Executive Board and from now on will lead the Market Development Committee as its Chairman. Dr Peter M. Hamberger (Hamberger Flooring) was re-elected as Auditor for the MMFA. All appointments were approved by a unanimous vote.
Members voted unanimously in favour of accepting three new companies as associate members: Solutions SL (Elda, Spain), H.B. Fuller Deutschland GmbH (Lüneburg, Germany) and I4F Licensing B.V. (Eindhoven, Netherlands). Taking into account these newcomers, as of end April 2018 the MMFA now has 51 members, including 22 ordinary and 27 associate members, plus two supporting members.
The MMFA can look back over a busy and successful year in 2017. Good progress has been made in research projects and by the Market Development Committee. In his presentation, President Matthias Windmöller made reference to the joint session held in Düsseldorf in November 2017 which resulted in important decisions on product clustering, i.e. the new grouping within the MMFA for product classes. This new classification is being used as the basis for sales statistics and has been effective since the start of 2018. Looking across the Atlantic, Mr Windmöller praised the early and dynamic advances and the rapid work rate achieved by the North American Multilayer Flooring Association MFA, whose first General Assembly he attended last summer. Both associations will continue to maintain close contact and exchange professional views and information.
Further developments at EU level are on the horizon: MMFA members unanimously granted their Executive Board the mandate to establish the EuFCA – the European Floor Covering Association. The founding members are to be the ECRA (carpet), ERFMI (flexible coverings), EPLF (laminate) and MMFA Associations. In the case of the other three associations, the Executive Boards have not yet been granted authorisation by their members, but a positive outcome is anticipated soon. The new EuFCA organisation, an “Association of Associations”, is to be located in Brussels so as to fully and effectively represent the interests of the industry.
The MMFA consequently has a packed programme for the rest of the year with a great number of new tasks lined up for its internal workgroups. The Mönchengladbach meeting was an opportunity for members to find out about current developments in technology and standardisation: Bernhard Grewing (Windmöller GmbH) introduced the “Clean-off Zones” project, and Dr Rico Emmler and Petra Schulz (IHD Dresden) gave talks on the ongoing MMFA “Hot Spot” and “Castor Chair Test” projects.
The sales trend for MMFA members continues to be a positive one, although the growth in membership distorts the basis of reporting, making it difficult to draw a comparison with the previous year’s figures. Sebastian Wendel (Akzenta) presented the current MMFA sales figures to the meeting. For Class 1 flooring (HDF core) the Association estimates the share of the world market held by MMFA members in 2017 at more than 90%. In 2017, MMFA members sold 9.9 million m2 of Class 1 products around the world. In the same year, as much as 80% of sales volumes in this class could be attributed to members in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In the “old” MMFA Class 2 (based on polymer or polymer composite), MMFA members reached sales of over 48 million m2 in 2017, of which 23 million m2 was accounted for by Western Europe and around 21 million m2 by North America. According to an in-house estimate by the Association, in 2017 MMFA members achieved a share of approx. 38% for Class 2 in the main market of Western Europe.