US moulders can look to Europe as “pioneers“ in process integration and automation

ENGEL has said that the US market can look to Europe and its “pioneering“ approach to process integration and automation as a key growth driver for the country.

Speaking during NPE, Peter Neumann, ENGEL CEO, said that this would be key for its own sales in the country, as US customers focused less on standardised machines and more on complex, more integrated systems.

“Europe is pioneering when it comes to complex process integration and highly functional technologies,“ Neumann said. “This is an area where we see increasing growth in the USA as the markets here require highly automated processes with stable production and quality.“

Overall the company saw 11 percent growth in automation globally and confirmed that its strategy is to grow its automation systems faster than injection moulding.

“Less and less companies require just one machine, they want a package that delivers everything. So, therefore, we are almost forced to do it,“ Neumann added. 

The key markets identified by the company as having major growth potential in the USA are automotive, medical and packaging.

“Where we see a big growth is the automitve sector, especially in the composites sector for lightweighting,“ said Mark Sankovitch of ENGEL’s US subsidiary. “In 2012 we made a commitment to this with our specialised centre in composites in the company’s headuqartes in Austria and we see a real place for this technology here as car manufacturers are increasingly interested in lightweighting solutions.“

The company said that the USA was its second largest global market, citing the country’s reindustrialisation due to low cost of energy, labour and a surge in re-shoring as key reasons for the market becoming stronger and its sales increasing.

Summarising, Peter Neumann said that the company must “do its homework“ in order to increase market share in the country, but he saw good potential in the market in the next two to three years.