Moulding mastery and a virtual future at Arburg's Black Forest mould-show
Arburg are rightly proud of the eminence of its Technology Days – it has become an annual touchstone for the injection moulding technology sector to discern the direction of one of Germany’s injection moulding pioneers.
For plastics processors, it’s an indulgence akin to a slice of the local Black Forest gateau to join the throng, and taste the cutting edge of mould tech.
The firm has plenty to highlight, whether strong demand for the electric machines, a new remote assistance service or triple ISO certification for its in-house training scheme.
6300 visitors of 54 nationalities journeyed into the misty forests and bucolic pastures of the Schwartzwald, to find themselves in the high-tech glass and steel expansive Arburg plant in Lossburg, southern Germany.
Even as one of the technology pioneers in injection moulding, Arburg has been riding a strong sales year – Finance Director Jürgen Boll declaring “our success story keeps on going”, as he announced 2017 secured a consolidated turnover of €680m, compared to €636m in 2016, and €596m the year before.
Continued growth in developed moulding markets such as Germany and the US powered the revenue rises, with Italy and Switzerland providing support through healthy demand, China well surpassing sales targets, and the new Arburg subsidiary in Taiwan proving to be worth the investment.
On the Technology Day tour, guided by Arburg’s chief technology officer, Heinz Gaub, the showcase area is alive with moulding action, highlighting the company’s expertise in building ‘smart’ machines that turnout reliably perfect products.
First on display is the Allrounder 570H, making keyboard keys with a big holding rack – all parts are filled, and it shows Arburg’s own technology in transition pressures between the injection and holding phases, to overcome the abrupt transition between pressures when filling cavities properly.
The Allrounder 570 S, busy making car seat adjusters, includes the moulding of several components. It is showing the potential for strong plastics opportunities in automotive, using a polyamide component part, with TPE sealing the material.
Allrounder 630 H is active further in the injection moulding arena, with 250,000 tonnes clamping force and foaming of melt-foam via a process gas on show. The application is to reduce weight for a moulded battery cover, which has a Mucell injection offered, in cooperation with Tesla cars.
The Allrounder 820 S is making a head rest holder, which as a safety part must have high strength –ensured by the fibre addition. The machine runs fibre conveying belts, with fibres that are a maximum of 50mm cut, but currently running 12mm cut fibres. They are fed into the melt and create direct compounding into the mould cavity. The average fibre length is high so the fibre give a high strength to moulded parts.
The H injection 4600 is making a housing for controllers, with a new design, led on Arburg’s Gestica controller a for hi tech look, with freshly renovated colour scheme.
Guided onto the Allrounder 820A, the IMM is working on large strong parts construction, where hollow fibres are put into the injected material, which is full of small bubbles to make a sort of foam for strong yet lightweight parts. The 820A includes an additional hi-drive gripper, which positions parts on a cooling stand and then puts them in the packaging box, a function requested by customers.
Arburg’s Allrounder 630 is making plastic spoons, which despite the attention paid to the product due to the environmental impact of disposable cutlery, remains a highly popular moulded product for schools and cruise ships or any organisation where large numbers of diners need cutlery quickly. Additionally, with millions of air passengers travelling the skies all the time, plastic cutlery is a consistently high volume product. The production cost for each spoon runs around 1/1000th of a cent – optimal plastic spoon processing is 200 spoons per minute.
The Allrounder 375V specialises in moulding for parts as a one-off, now processing a tensioner strap with alternately different buckle ends as hook or eye. On the screen the operator can choose three lengths or colours for the tension strap, available as different variants for the same mould.
The integrated robo can then place the correct part and deposit it in the packaging for further supply, as a one-off specialist machine it is capable of production manufacturing on demand.
It is clear just from the injection moulding arena the level of versatility and performance offered by the range of clamping forces in the variety of Allrounder machines. Arburg used the traditional clamping and moulding processes to offer the intelligent solutions it has on show.
Onwards from the scale of the Allrounder arena, Gaub goes on to show the additive manufacturing specialism in Arburg’s Freeformer area, specialising in 3D printing for industrial applications.
Eberhard Lutz, the Director of Freeformer Sales, said: “At the Technology Days, we are demonstrating the wide variety of functional components that can be produced from qualified original materials in an additive manufacturing process using the Freeformer. Because we have been receiving highly positive feedback on the processing capabilities with standard polypropylene since the premiere in Autumn 2017, we have now started using this semi-crystalline material at our Arburg Prototyping Center to produce sample parts for potential customers on the Freeformer.”
The Freeformer centre is where Arburg specialises in finessed work to develop new products. The room is the epicentre of Arburg’s work on benchmark and prototype products, where the machines run 24/7.
In addition to amorphous standard granulates such as ABS, PA and PC, the material spectrum includes, elastic TPU and semi-crystalline PP. The processing of PMMA and a medically approved SEBS with a hardness of 28 Shore A (Cawiton PR13576) was presented for the first time at the Technology Days.
From the first Freeformer on show, a specialist in soft materials, using thermoplastic elastomers to build small silicone gates, to another printing with standard polypropylene to make a cap for cosmetics packaging, visitors can see the range of additive manufacturing applications at Arburg – from industrial to packaging and medical.
There is also a Freeformer making two component grippers using a mix of ABS and TPE, another featuring a new mixture of PMA7M, for high density and very clear transparent parts, which can be used in roto-plastics, and a final machine using Makrolon to print structures for replacement knees.
From the cutting edge of industrial additive manufacturing Arburg Technology Days tour goes to show its historic display, to view its industrial heritage and earliest moulding machinery, as the spring sunshine dapples across a tranquil pair of Japanese gardens at the heart of the Arburg complex, where the five cosmic elements flow to offer a breathing space amongst the rapt crowds and dynamic machinery.
The Arburg Efficiency area presented six new remote assistance packages: Support package letting the moulding experts view operators actions remotely; fast paremeter setting help; safety parameter optimisation; constant montoring to adapt processes to the right reference curve; a production package for greater programming freedom, and a service packaging where Arburg can access adjustment data and provides a release gateway to aid service for operators. The package contains tunnel and encoded data transfer via cloud for remote access. The operator can be guided through diagnostics on the phone with the range of service functions to fix machinery included in package.
From the Efficiency Packages, Arburg flags its Four Visions area. The virtual reality, ‘virtual twin’ machines use machinery CAD to show the operator, on a VR headset, the product set up, drive mechanics and machine parts from all angles and orientations, with larger-than-life viewings.
Using augmented reality, Arburg has also developed a virtual system to train its customers, improving the accessibility of process learning. The visor view shows a virtual flipchart next to the machine, to guide the operator through maintenance jobs.
From virtual reality, visitors could then see the graft of machine assembly on the factory floor, with huge and heavy components which seamlessly delivered straight into production.
The extensive plant and heat of technology is enough to work up a hearty appetite, and Arburg even have sausage production covered - the canteen even has an Industry 4.0 machining centre delivering Wurst for trainees’ lunches.