With competition and the demand for efficiency growing, system solutions – machine, automation, process technology, training and service from a single source – are becoming increasingly important. A trend that injection moulding machine builder Engel Austria identified at an early stage. Engel Automation Technology was founded 25 years ago, and 15,000 automation solutions have been built to date.
This anniversary was celebrated with an open house at the Dietach works in mid-September. 2000 visitors, mainly from Austria, the Czech Republic and Germany took this opportunity to take a peek behind the scenes of a state of the art robot production facility. "We didn't expect such large numbers of interested visitors", as Dr. Stefan Engleder, the works director at Engel Automation Technology in Dietach is happy to say.
"1200 new robots will be leaving the Engel works at Dietach this year for destinations all over the world", says engineer Johannes Brandstötter, Head of Sales at Engel Automation Technology during guided tours for visitors through the facility." And the trend continues to increase. This year, we anticipate record figures in terms of volume statistics for this location."
Today, nearly one in two automated production cells sold by European injection moulding machine manufacturer is supplied by Engel, as is one in four robots delivered to the injection moulding industry. This makes Engel the clear global leader in injection moulding machine automation. More than 15,000 Engel robots are deployed worldwide. In addition to this, Engel cooperates with brand-name system partners to integrate multiple axis industrial robots into production cells for injection moulding processing, and designs and builds individually tailored automation solutions.
"The huge success of Engel Automation Technology in the recent past has mainly been attributable to the new Engel viper robot generation," as Dr. Engleder emphasises. Thanks to the viper model range, this has opened up a second line of business in addition to system integration; after all, linear robots are often deployed as replacements for legacy machines and with third-party injection moulding machines.
The Engel viper robots are mainly characterised by their high load-bearing capability, the excellent positioning accuracy, and their dynamic motion. Three software features are responsible for this extraordinary profile of characteristics: vibration control eliminates structure-borne oscillation and ensures improved tracking and positional accuracy, while at the same time reducing cycle times.
