South Korea
That nothing is done by coincidence is rather obvious around WideCut. Even the new plant and office is a meticulous masterpiece that instantly reflects on what the company is dealing with. The spacious and futuristic three floors and 1500 m2 large plant breeds professional diamond wire manufacturing. And that is what WideCut does, exclusively, with 100% of the production exported.
Biggest foreign market is Japan with about a 35% share, followed by Europe with 30%. About 10% of the production is sold to the US, 15% to Asia and a remaining 10% to other areas of the world. WideCut has two main product sectors, diamond wire for concrete and diamond wire for stone. Wire for concrete dominates completely with approximately 90%. Annually about 60,000m of diamond wire is produced at the factory and at this stage only about 25% of the factory’s capacity is used. The current annual sales are US$4M(EUR3M) with 18 employees.
A solid background in diamond tools John Han is calm and humble. Not a man of big headlines and has a vision and a passion carved in stone. He knows what he is doing, where he stands and where he wants to go. He is from the very south of South Korea and graduated with a major in Metal Engineering at a University in Korea. In 1985 he joined the Korean diamond tool manufacturer EHWA Diamond with his professor’s recommendation. He made quite a career at EHWA and became the head of its research and development department. His main task was to develop and produce the first diamond wire in Korea. In 1996 Han was sent to EHWA’s US subsidiary, General Tool in California. His task was to set up a professional diamond tool production line.
When his mission was completed he decided to embrace his long time dream and establish his own company. As diamonds were his passion he was convinced that diamond tools were a promising product. But at that time he felt that diamond wire needed more research. Diamond wire had, at that time, unstable quality, so his aim was to develop his own and started WideCut in 1998 focusing solely on diamond wire. That is why the company’s slogan since then has been ‘Only Wire’.
