Letter from the editor

THE LEADER.COM is back this month with another selection of varied articles. We have received positive comments about our last edition from some of our readers. Thank you to those of you who have taken the time to send us your comments. leader@bleutec.com

This month:
- Luc, our GM, presents to you another extremely valuable member within the BLEUTEC team, Karine
- You sell what !!!! ? Read about our mission after 15 years of work, by Luc Turcotte
- Hallowe'en, where does it come from ? By Karine
- A less known wheel, SANDWICH ! By Luc

We invite you to be watchful as you may find interesting offers in this third edition of the LEADER.COM !

Happy reading!

Signed,
Frederic Lagace
Editor

INTRODUCTION OF BLEUTEC TEAM

This month, we are pleased to introduce you to our smiling Karine. At Bleutec for 10 years now (October 23, 1992), Karine Piché started with us as a secretary. During the years, we have gotten to know her qualities and talents. Today, she is responsible for our computer system, for the purchase of the necessary Web site tools, and for the publication of the leader.com. She also holds different administrative positions. Therefore, she is like the general manager’s right hand person.

Curious and dynamic, Karine is almost the confidante to all at Bleutec. She is involved in the company’s social activities, and she is the one who wants to reunite the whole team in order to create a friendly atmosphere that benefits us, as well as all our customers.

Luc Turcotte

QUEBEC CITY INDUSTRIAL SHOW

The entire Bleutec team thanks all the clients that came to meet us at the Salon Industriel du Quebec that was held from October 8th to 10th. This show was an excellent opportunity to see friends again, and also a great chance to make contacts with future Bleutec customers. Rest assured that we’ll do our outmost to answer all the requests we received during the show. If by chance we have forgotten to answer one of our clients, please let us know and we’ll take the necessary steps to satisfy you.

Gilles Drouin

Gilles, our Quebec area sales rep.

BE ORGANIZED !

To all our readers: This month, we offer to send you our three ring BLEUTEC WHEELS & CASTERS BINDER. We have noticed during our visits to our customers and prospects that this tool can become a very useful one. Please note that we are not offering to send a catalogue, but a binder in which you can insert anything you want. For more than 3 binders, please advise us, and we will send them with your next order to minimise freight costs.

We are proud to announce the arrival in the following weeks of a mini-catalogue with our most popular products. leader@bleutec.com

Frédéric Lagacé

THANKSGIVING

Although Thanksgiving is still a few weeks from today, the entire Bleutec team wants to take this time to wish all of our customers south of the border a very happy and safe Thanksgiving.

The Bleutec team

Thought for the month of November:

Success is the fruit of good judgement.

Good judgement is the fruit of experience.

Experience is often the fruit of errors of judgement.

HAPPY HALLOWE'EN

The origins of Hallowe’en can be traced back to Ireland.

The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, celebrated their new year on November 1, a day that also marked the end of summer.

October 31 was known as the eve of the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, a harvest festival that marked the death of the old year and the beginning of a new one. The Celts were deeply intertwined with nature, and the death of their world around them became associated with human death.

They believed that the “veil” between the world of the living and the dead was the thinnest at this time, and the Celts communicated with their deceased loves ones. Therefore, if spirits were traveling on Samhain, so too could hostile spirits. In order to scare the bad spirits away, the Celts carved faces into potatoes and turnips, and lit them with candles. They dressed up in ghoulish costumes, and paraded around in their neighborhoods.

Karine Piché
data source: www.birthdayexpress.com/bexpress/planning
/halloween.asp

SELL WHEELS / CASTERS ???

You sell what? Casters? What's a caster?
Who would you sell a caster to?

How many times have I been asked these questions in the past 15 years?
Thousands of times!!

Casters are found everywhere. With several “rolling” work fields, the openings for our products are almost limitless (see the turtle story in the leader.com’s second issue). Seriously, if we think for only a minute, dozens of applications for our products come to mind. Large aerospace, automobile, and textile manufacturers; hospitals; large surfaced food and hardware chains; hotels; restaurants; and the equipment manufacturers for the above mentioned users are, for our sales team, our prospects. Even “Mr. Fix-It” that works out of his garage will one day need a caster.

We don’t often see the caster, but it is of great importance. Yet, our product is not well-known and considered little. Created over 5,000 years ago, this simple invention completely changed the era’s work methods by decreasing the friction efforts inherent to moving a load. At Bleutec, we are proud of the products that we sell and of our profession because we believe in helping our clients by offering technical solutions, whereas others talk about price. To become the leader was our objective 15 years ago, and today, our objective is to remain the leader.

No one can accuse us of walking with our heads held high because for the past 15 years, our passion compels us to almost crawl to find a potential application for our wheels and casters.

Luc Turcotte

THE SANDWICH WHEEL

Since it’s creation 8 years ago and with more than 3,5 millions copies sold since then, the sandwich wheel is the caster of the future in the material handling industry. With the combined advantages of a hard wheel and soft wheel in the same product, the sandwich wheel has the characteristic of being two times less noisy than a hard tread wheel such as phenolic, polyamide, and plastic. Furthermore, this new wheel requires minimal starting effort in order to move a load, therefore reducing the risk of back injury.

The innovation comes from inserting a super elastic rubber ring between the body and polyamide tread. By using a polyamide with a high resistance to impacts, we provide this wheel with important advantages: low starting effort, ability to skid sideways, excellent resistance to shocks, and high resistance to cleaning agents in the food industry. The RESILEX rubber ring helps to reduce the rolling noise by eliminating the vibrations that are not transmitted to the rig and cart, and permits to roll over obstacles which would normally block a hard wheel.

Available in 4 and 5 inch (100 and 125mm), the wheel supports loads of 440 lbs. (200 kg) per wheel. Principally destined to equip roll containers and dollies used in the food distribution sector, the sandwich wheel is very popular in the UK, South Africa, and Israel. At Bleutec, we believe that this wheel deserves to be known better in North America.

Luc Turcotte

PRE-INVENTORY SALE

Keep a close eye on your e-mails because in the next few weeks, we’ll be announcing a promotion before our annual inventory on November 30, 2002.

Frank Paré