Power behind CECIP

European weighing instruments manufacturers, including members of CECIP, represent over 50% of the worldwide trade volume. There are ca. 700 companies active in the production of weighing instruments (many of them being partly or even over 50% active on related fields as well). The weighing industry in total employs around 50.000 people and had a turnover of 3 billion Euros in 2008.

CECIP represents the national associations of weighing instruments manufacturers from 15 European countries. As in some European countries there is no manufacture of weighing instruments, CECIP should be considered as covering the whole productive capacity of the European weighing industry.

• 700 manufacturers;

• turnover 3 billion Euro in 2008;

• 50.000 employees;

• + 4000 – 5000 micro companies (10.000 employees).

In the European weighing industry only a limited number of bigger companies manufactures the produce from the beginning till the end. Approximately 100 companies are present on the market with their own original products such as balances and scales for different applications in many market segments including production of load cells, mechanical parts and design of software based solutions.

The majority of companies in our industry are smaller companies assembling components from different manufacturers. The share of bigger companies (more than 250 employees) is 4% (28 companies), medium sized companies (less than 250 but more than 50 employees) represent a share of 35 % (250 companies) and small companies (less than 50 employees) are dominating with a share of 60 %. That means the industry is clearly carried by SME’s, which employ more than 50% of the human resources working in the weighing industry.

In addition there are some 4000 - 5000 very small micro companies with only 1-3 employees. These companies are often service providers, but they are also occasionally assembling scales in limited editions. Even though they are not traditional manufacturers (and thus not statistically covered in the above announced turnover) they are anyhow obliged to strictly follow the same exhaustive requirements after the new NLF-aligned MID and NAWID will enter into force. Micro-companies will be particularily heavily impacted by the planned modifications of MID and NAWID (e.g. definition of manufacturer, translation requirements). As a result, the vast majority of them will be obliged to dramatically change their current business processes.

Please see CECIP position paper on the alignment of the NAWID Directive to the New legislative framework here.

The Measuring Instruments Directive has been also recently submitted to a public consultation. CECIP replied to the consultation on October 2010 (see here).  

The market share in numbers of scales for the different scale types under MID and NAWID are the following:

Under MID		Under NAWID
Catchweighers Filling instruments Discontinuous totalising instruments Continuous totalizing instruments Railway bridges	42% 36% 12% 6% 4%	Small, < 150 kg, in retail Medium, < 1.500 kg, in industry Special, >1.500 & < 10.000 kg, industry Truck weighbridges, > 10.000 kg, industry	73,2% 14,2% 4,3% 3,7%

Apart of these types, scales for internal weighing in industry and domestic use such as kitchens and bathrooms are manufactured.