Sumitomo (SHI) Demag Plastics Machinery GmbH, is pleased about the high level of capacity utilisation at its factory in Wiehe, located in the state of Thuringia in Germany. In recent days this factory of the Japanese-German producer of injection moulding machines has accepted numerous orders from both domestic and international customers. Among them are substantial orders like the one from geobra Brandstätter for a further 50 hydraulic Systec machines for the production of the Playmobil system toys. On the other hand, the vigorous ordering activity stems from a flood of demand from emerging market countries such as China, Mexico and Turkey as well as established American, South-East Asian and European markets.
By the end of April the factory in Wiehe had an order intake for small machines that had doubled in a year-on-year comparison. As a central production location for all electric injection moulding machines that the Group produces for the European and American markets, Wiehe also benefits from the trend towards more electric drive engineering in the plastics processing industry. This means that sales volumes of all-electric injection moulding machines have risen disproportionately when measured against the overall sales figures.
"Substantial orders from China, Mexico and Turkey confirm the upward trend to be observed in many important markets abroad that suffered a particularly bad hit during the financial and economic crisis," says Christian Renners, General Manager of the Business Unit Sales & After Sales at Sumitomo (SHI) Demag, when commenting on the pleasing development. "That the smaller injection moulding machines are being sought so early and so intensively now that the markets are recovering again leads us to expect that the renaissance in demand for the medium-sized and large machines will continue to gather momentum," says Renners.
With its current order from Sumitomo (SHI) Demag geobra Brandstätter GmbH & Co. KG, headquartered in Zirndorf, is stepping up its Playmobil production even further. Last autumn this toy producer based in the German state of Franconia already ordered 30 small hydraulic machines of the type Systec 25-120 with a clamping force of 250 kN for its main factory in Dietenhofen. In the winter of 2010/2011 there followed a further order for 20 System 25 machines for the company's toy figure factory in Malta. The 30 Systec 50 currently on order with a clamping force of 500 kN are to be delivered to Dietenhofen this summer.
The Systec from Sumitomo (SHI) Demag has impressed the Playmobil specialists with a number of technical advantages - such as the particularly stable linear guidance on the clamping side, involving less wear on the moulds, and oil change intervals of 40,000 h due to the integrated, intelligent oil management system activeCool&Clean. A further convincing feature was the user-friendly NC5 control system.
Since 2009 the works in Wiehe has focused on the development and production of all-electric injection moulding machines. With the IntElect and SE product lines, which have clamping forces ranging from 300 to 4.500 kN, it supplies all electric models from Sumitomo (SHI) Demag for the markets in Europe and America. "The precision, the effectiveness and the high energy efficiency of electric injection moulding machines are convincing the plastic processing industry more than ever before," says the long-established works manager Frank Stengel. In addition to the electric product lines, the factory in Thuringia also offers the small hydraulic machines of the Systec model with clamping forces of up to 1,200 kN.
