Arburg sees electric machine growth in both “sales and significance”
Arburg says electric machines are contributing in “large measure” to its overall sales for 2018.
Reporting the latest figures at the Fakuma trade show in Germany, Jürgen Boll, Managing Director of Finance, said the value of incoming orders for machines and peripherals in the first half of 2018 was more than 10 per cent higher than in 2017.
“Our electrical machines contributed in large measure to this success. This impressive increase, of 18 percent, demonstrates the point about the value of new incoming orders very clearly,” explained Boll.
“Electrical machines are therefore set to increase again in 2018, in terms of their proportion of sales and of their significance.”
Boll also said demand has been good for its hybrid machines that combine electrical speed and precision at the closing end with hydraulic power and dynamic characteristics at the injection end.
“These remain an important cornerstone for many customer-specific, high-performance system solutions right around the world,” Boll added.
Arburg says there has been a “disproportionate rise” in the value of incoming orders for the big Allrounders from size 630 (from a clamping force of 2,500 kN). Accounting for 25 per cent of sales, Arburg says they have made “a very important contribution” to the high growth rates in the value of incoming orders.
“This year, we fully anticipate another very pleasing further increase in Group sales revenues,” Boll continued. “In 2017, we reached 698 million euros. In the first half of 2018, and still now at the end of the third quarter, we are still well ahead of the previous year, and we continue to expect good levels of revenue for the rest of this year.”
On the Road to Digitalisation
Arburg’s continues to place a large focus in 2018 and beyond on digitalisation of its products and processes.
By designing products in an integrated way, the company says it can help customers digitalise their operations no matter which phase they are at.
“To ensure that we have optimum customised solutions available for our individual customers, we work in an integrated manner right across our corporation. In other words, we bundle the total expertise of our many specialists from Development, IT, Technology and Sales to deliver tangible benefits to our customers,” Boll added.
These include solutions for starting, setting up, producing and monitoring, as well as the design of its host computer system, ALS, which acts as a central module of Industry 4.0 and facilitates online data interchange.
New, larger Freeformer set to be launched
Arburg also revealed it will launch a new freeformer plastics processing machine next month.
The newfreeformer 300-3Xis a larger version of its additive manufacturing machine and will be officially unveiled at the Formnext trade show in Germany on November 13.
The machine, capable of processing three components, is being launched following the success of Arburg’s original freeformer.
The new, multi-component machine will allow the creation of resilient hard-soft combinations with a support structure for the first time.