Arburg
Arburg has completed a suite of shows during the first half of 2018, pictured here the Technology Days in Lossburg in March.
Arburg says it has successfully completed a "perfect track record" of appearances at important trade fairs worldwide in the first half of 2018, as it rounds up the suite of shows at Plast Milan.
Starting with its own 'Technology Days' at its Headquarters in Lossburg, Germany, and including the Hannover Fair, Chinaplas and NPE, Plast sees the company debuting its latest machine design for the benefit of an Italian audience.
Speaking at Plast, Stephan Doehler, Director of Sales for Europe, said: "At the Technology Days in Lossburg we presented our range of products and services to 6,300 invited guests from 54 countries with more than 50 'live' applications. At the Hannover Messe...we demonstrated our pioneering role in the context of digitalisation and Industry 4.0 across all sectors."
At Plast in Milan, the company's Allrounder 820 H, with a clamping force of 4,000kn and equipped with its new 'Gestica' control system, is the highlight of its display. However, Doehler said that despite the importance of the machine appearing at a trade show for the first time in Italy, "technology isn't everything."
He explained that the service offered by Arburg from each of its subsidiaries and partners worldwide is something the company is "uncompromisingly committed to." The company's Italian subsidiary, celebrating a 25-year anniversary this year, was praised by Doehler as "a very successful and well established subsidiary" in its strongest EU market outside Europe. The company's UK subsidiary has also recently been recognised for its own successful 25-years of service.
Delivering a worldwide message
Consistent in its messaging across all of the trade shows it has exhibited at, Arburg presented in Milan what it has done throughout the first half of the year: the importance of 'digital transformation' within the plastics processing industry in the context of automation and 'Industry 4.0.'
Commenting, Bjorn Noren, Managing Director of Arburg's Italian subsidiary, Arburg Srl, said: "When it comes to 'Industry 4.0' and 'digital transformation', everyone is talking about these topics today, as they have gained a lot of momentum, especially in Italy, due to state subsidiary programmes."
Highlights of the technology relating to these trends, Noren explained, include the Arburg host computer system, ALS, a "key element" in the implementation of Industry 4.0, he said, as it enables the continuous traceability of orders, batches or individual parts. It is also presenting Freeforming additive manufacturing at Plast, as well as robotic systems and turnkey solutions.
"The Freeformer business is running very well," explained Doehler. "The majority of customers at the moment are from Germany, Switzerland and France. We have made some major developments to the Freeformer which we are keen to show and is why we are including them on our trade fair booth. Many customers are keen to have the Freeformers as part of their operations as it means they can prototype in house and they can keep this confidential information in-house."
On Freeformer sales worldwide, he added: "Although we only have a small percentage of our sales to our traditional injection moulding customers, we do see this as a growing trend for IMM and one that will becoming more apparent in the future."