Arburg Technology Days 2012

The international plastics world met for the Arburg Technology Days in Lossburg from 14 - 17 March 2012. For four days, 5,200 visitors from 49 countries were offered a top-class exhibition: with product innovations, more than 40 exhibits, innovative applications and specialist presentations. A major focus was placed on the topic of production efficiency, which Arburg covered comprehensively and holistically.

2012 once again demonstrated that the Arburg Technology Days are an extremely well established industry event for the international plastics scene. “The fantastic response from the industry experts from around the world and the great interest in our extensive product range, as well as the focus on production efficiency, demonstrate that the Technology Days once again proved a real hit,” said a delighted Michael Hehl, Managing Partner and spokesperson for the Arburg Management Team. Some 43 percent of visitors came from outside Germany and all continents were represented. The largest group counted 200 visitors and came from Switzerland. Around 160 visitors travelled to the Technology Days from France, Poland and the Czech Republic respectively. The largest group from overseas came from the USA, with around 140 visitors.

“In a pioneering move, we placed the overarching topic of production efficiency at the centre of all our activities in 2012,” explained Michael Hehl regarding Arburg’s approach. “Efficient production means achieving optimum quality at minimum unit costs. Important influencing factors for cost-effective moulded part production include cycle time, energy requirements and the organisation of the entire production activities. Here, it's important that we don't just focus on production efficiency in the machine sector, but take the entire value-added chain into account,” he added. Consequently, a special exhibition area was dedicated to production efficiency in order to present all the significant aspects based on practical examples, jointly with the relevant partners: from product design, as well as mould, machine and peripheral technology, including configuration, through to process integration, process control and production planning.

To complement the exhibits, five specialist presentations by internal and external speakers provided a comprehensive overview and detailed information on production efficiency. Some 2,700 participants visited the German and English presentations and their unanimously favourable feedback confirmed that the interest of the Technology Day visitors was met to a tee. With around 820 participants, the presentations on efficient moulded part production and on mould technology enjoyed the best attendance.

Like every year, Arburg again took the Technology Days as an opportunity to present product innovations to the international trade public in 2012. These innovations contribute to further improving the cost-efficiency of moulded part production.

One feature was the productivity package for the globally well-established hydraulic Allrounder Golden Edition machine series. This includes the Arburg energy-saving system (AES) with variable speed pump drive and a water-cooled drive motor.

The use of AES enables the energy requirements of the Allrounder Golden Edition machines to be reduced by up to 20 percent because a frequency converter continuously adjusts the speed of the electric motor to the actual power required. Thanks to the variable-speed pump drive, the machines can be operated at higher speeds in accordance with requirements. This results in a higher pump output, reducing the machine’s dry run time by around five percent. The cycle times can also be reduced accordingly. A further benefit is the minimisation of noise, heat and dust emissions. Moreover, the dissipated heat can be utilised for the purpose of energy recovery.

A further innovation is the servo-electrically driven “twin-screw Injester” for processing an extremely broad range of high-viscosity and paste-like compounds, such as moist polyester (BMC), solid silicone (HTC) or wax. In addition to the comprehensive spectrum of applications, extremely simple and fast cleaning is a further advantage of this Arburg solution. This results in shorter set-up and downtimes and therefore high cost efficiency.

As a global innovation and highlight with regard to process integration, Arburg, jointly with FPT Robotik, presented a production cell with an integrated inline printing system. The so-called InkBoT process combines digital printing and robotics. Thanks to high-precision robotic system kinematics and improvements in the print heads supplied by the inkjet industry, the inline printing system makes it possible to exploit the benefits of digital printing in the high-speed sector in industrial production processes for the first time.

At the Technology Days, personalised name plates were used to demonstrate how products with an individualised design can be flexibly produced using the new process. In addition to the inline printing system, the fully automated production cell designed for this purpose also featured an electric Allrounder 370 E and a six-axis robotic system. Two individually printed name plates were produced in a cycle time of approx. 20 seconds, impressively demonstrating the great flexibility of this innovative technology.

With more than 40 exhibition machines and applications, all the injection moulding processes and sectors were represented at the Technology Days. The electric, hybrid and hydraulic Allrounders with clamping forces from 125 to 5,000 kN, including vertical machines, produced parts for the automotive, electrical/electronics, medical technology, optical and packaging sectors, as well as for the wide-ranging technical injection moulding sector. The application range included the processing of various materials such as thermoset, LSR, metal and ceramic powders, as well as wood polymer. A wide variety of technologies, such as in-mould labelling, gas injection moulding, multi-component and micro-injection moulding, Mucell, clean room production, compression injection moulding, as well as the overmoulding of inserts were also on show.

Arburg's service and training offerings were also presented. Visitors showed great interest, for example, in the energy measurement feature, which experts presented on an electric Allrounder 470 E. Not only did they show the visitors how the measurements are made, but also explained the prerequisites for correct measurement and selection of the correct measuring instrument.

As always, the plant tours proved enormously popular. A total of 200 tours in German offered more than 1,600 visitors exciting insights into the efficient production and assembly of the Allrounders. Furthermore, all the foreign delegations who visited the Technology Days in the company of the Arburg subsidiaries and trading partners were offered guided tours in their own national language.

Source: Arburg