Trevor Greetham is the UK-based director for asset allocation and portfolio manager of Fidelity Funds ¨C Multi Asset Navigator Fund. He handles asset allocation and performance evaluation of the portfolio as well as formulating the overall investment strategies of the fund. He is responsible for a total of $450 million in a range of multi-asset funds in Europe and Asia including the Fidelity Funds ¨C Growth & Income Fund and Fidelity International Funds ¨C Multi Asset Strategic Fund.

Fidelity International manages around $260 billion across both Europe and Asia.

What are the biggest opportunities that you see in the markets you are responsible for in the coming 12 months? How are you preparing to take advantage of those opportunities?

Greetham: The large developed economies, led by the US, are slowing in the face of a credit crunch and falling property prices. However, emerging economies are still booming, forcing commodity prices and global inflation rates higher. Taken as a whole, the world economy is suffering from a mild bout of stagflation, an environment in which central banks are reluctant to cut rates and stock markets are volatile. A defensive mix of investments makes sense.

Our multi-asset funds offer investors diversified exposure to stocks, property, commodities, bonds and cash. At present we are overweighting commodities, bonds and cash but we maintain a meaningful exposure to equities as they are the asset class likely to offer the best returns over the long run. We see good equity market opportunities in the hot spots of the world economy.

How different or similar is your 12-month investment outlook now compared to the start of this year?

My asset allocation strategy makes use of an investment clock approach which links the performance of asset classes and equity sectors to the evolution of the global economic cycle. I tend not to make forecasts and instead focus on what I refer to as now-casting. In other words, my investment strategy changes depending on whether recent trends in global growth or inflationary pressures are continuing or reversing tack. The current configuration of weak growth and rising inflation has been in place since the second half of 2007 and, so far, there¡¯s no sign of a change. My funds have been underweight equities and property for the last nine months with equity exposure focused on areas of continued strength.

Have you made any significant changes to your asset allocation in terms of markets or sectors in the past few months?

I have not made significant changes to my asset allocation since the middle of 2007 when the US subprime crisis hit with a vengeance, calling the previously strong global growth trend into question. At that point, I moved from a position where I was overweight both equities and commodities to my current stance in which I remain overweight commodities but have raised exposure to the more defensive assets classes of bonds and cash. I have been underweight financial, property and consumer sectors since early 2007 and that remains the case, with the underweight positions deepened in recent months.

What are your favoured markets in Asia?

Our investments in Asia are determined on a company by company basis by experts based in the region, rather than at a national level, as we feel this plays to our research strengths. That said, we prefer the stronger economies in the region to Japan, where growth is weak and wages are being squeezed by rising food and energy prices.

What are the markets you are going to steer clear of in the coming year?

Our equity exposure is currently tilted away from the US and Europe, where inflation-targeting central banks are likely to keep policy tight despite problems in the banking and property sectors. We saw recently how tough that inflation-fighting resolve can be when the ECB (European Central Bank) raised its benchmark interest rate by a quarter point. The markets currently expect the Bank of England and Federal Reserve to follow suit. With profit growth slowing and rates flat or rising, this is not a good equity market environment.

In global sector terms, we are tilted away from financials, consumer stocks and property as these are the areas likely to feel the effects of the credit crunch most acutely.

What are the main challenges that you expect to face in the coming 12 months?

With stagflation hitting the headlines and investor sentiment depressed, I¡¯d prefer to think in terms of the opportunities that are likely to emerge over the coming 12 months. Growth may recover. Inflation may fall. Either could happen at any time and either would be positive for stocks.

We are watching two potential triggers particularly closely. First, the US housing market. US house prices peaked a year before the broader US economy and stock-market and housing ought to be the first area to respond to monetary ease. Second, the oil price. As global growth slows, demand for energy ought to ease off.

At some point the oil price will peak and inflation pressures will drop allowing developed economy central banks to cut rates in earnest. That would probably be a signal to move back into interest-rate sensitive stocks and property in the US and Europe.

What are the main risks of investing in Asia at the moment? How are you managing those risks?

With real interest rates in the larger Asian economies low or even negative and regional banks relatively unexposed to global credit woes, it seems likely that the current strong trend will continue. However, domestic monetary policy is tightening and developed economy trading partners are slowing down so, at some point, this combination could lead to a period of slower growth. If this coincides with a fall in commodity prices, as seems likely, we would be likely to shift our overweight focus back to developed equity markets to take advantage of the sectors most likely to benefit from lower interest rates.

We would always retain exposure to Asia, though, as there is no other region offering such impressive long term growth prospects.

Copyright AsianInvestor.net, a subsidiary of Haymarket

So Doncasters Settas was forced to invest in a new system.

The company contacted various manufacturers in search of a solution, among others, also the Roesler branch in the Netherlands.

Managing director at Doncasters Settas, Axel Luckow, said: "The new machine had to be capable of removing virtually 100% of the entire moulding sand sticking onto the components with either thin or thick cross sections without damaging any of the castings, preferably in a shot blasting time that allowed for a high throughput rate.

Furthermore, we wanted the new system to provide for a certain capacity reserve".

He continued: "Another crucial aspect was an effective media recovery system that helped to minimise our cost for wear parts".

The engineers at Roesler's Untermerzbach facility in germany bprepared the concept and design of the overhead monorail de-moulding shot blast system, model RHBE 20/25.

Luckow said: "Roesler's solution really convinced us, as it not only provides high flexibility but is also more suitable for our requirements than the machines offered by the other companies".

The housing of the shot blast machine has dimensions of approximately 2600 x 3000 x 2680mm (102 x 118 x 106in - WxHxL).

It is made entirely of wear-resistant manganese steel.

The areas directly exposed to the blast stream are additionally protected by highly wear-resistant replaceable cast liners.

The shot blasting chamber is equipped with four high-performance blast wheels, type Hurricane H 28 with a diameter of 280mm (8in) and an installed power of 15kW each.

The wheels are vertically mounted on the side wall of the blast chamber.

* Simulation - 3D-animated simulations of the shot blasting process helped determine the wheels' optimum location and inclination angle.

Each blast wheel can be driven individually via the PLC, which means that the blast wheels can be used in any combination desired.

* Component-specific programmable blasting process - after the actual casting process a Y- shaped overhead monorail with two shuttle carriages transports the sand moulds, which may weigh up to three tons, into the shot blasting chamber in a 'wire basket'.

The system PLC contains various processing programs for the various castings, including blast time and blast intensity.

Starting with the top wheel, the de-moulding process takes place with single wheels blasting certain defined areas on the castings with steel shot S 390.

This process lasts about 4-5 min.

Throughout the blast process the castings rotate in front of the blast wheels.

Roesler told manufacturingtalk that this type of de- moulding can be compared with the 'peeling of an apple'.

On the one hand it prevents damage to the parts as the sand mould is removed in a controlled manner and, thus, prevents the titanium components from dropping within the wire basket.

On the other hand, blast media and sand are kept in the system at a fixed ratio which helps ensure an effective separation of media and sand.

When the castings are 80-90% free of sand, all four blast wheels will blast the components for 5-10 min to guarantee that any residual sand is safely removed from any cavities in the castings.

The sand dust generated during the shot blasting process is extracted continuously.

This requires high airstream velocities which may 'pull along with them' blast media.

To recover the blast media the Roesler RHBE 20/25 is equipped with a dropout box.

* Handling of the media/sand mix - the RHBE 20/25 shot blast machine supplied to Doncasters Settas is equipped with a fully enclosed low-wear vibratory conveyor to return the blast media/sand mixture.

It contains a separation screen that automatically separates and discharges sand lumps, coarse dirt particles and gates and risers from the system.

The quartz dust generated during the process is exhausted at multiple points - vibratory conveyor and elevator - so that no dust can escape into the building.

A dust collector with double filtration removes airborne dust particles and re-circulates the cleaned air back into the environment.

* Optimum media recovery minimises wear and operating costs - to ensure that the large amount of sand is reliably separated from the blast media, the overhead monorail shot blasting machine at Doncasters Settas is equipped with a dual drum magnetic separator.

A thin film of the blast media/sand mixture is spread evenly across two broad magnetic drums.