BRUDER Spielwaren was founded in 1926 by Paul Bruder, who began by producing brass tongues for toy manufacturers. Today, the company employs 490 people at its headquarters in Fürth, Germany, plus another 120 at its facility in Plzeň, Czech Republic, which was built in 2015.
Case study: Germany-based toy manufacturer relies on resource-saving, high-precision IM technology from Wittmann
Its first plastic parts were produced in 1958. Today, BRUDER delivers its high-quality toys to more than 60 countries. Around a quarter of its sales are made in the GAS region, with other major markets in France, Italy, the Netherlands, Eastern Europe, Japan and Korea. In the US, the company operates its own sales subsidiary.
Toy models made by BRUDER are designed to help children understand the functions of real-life objects. Special attention is paid to a well-balanced combination of easy-to-handle playing functions with simultaneous model consistency and the greatest possible stability. With its high-quality products, BRUDER ranks among the leading manufacturers of toy vehicles for children in Europe. BRUDER toys stand out by their quality and accuracy. For example, real appliances and vehicles of world-famous brands are reproduced as toy models on a scale of 1:16.
The products are mostly assembled without auxiliaries such as screws or adhesives. Only the wheels are pressed onto the vehicle axes by metal rods. Otherwise, only plug-in connections are used. The sturdy wheels of the vehicles are produced partly from TPE by way of 2K injection moulding, which makes it possible to achieve the desired similarity to the original. At the same time, this enhances the play value, since the wheels make considerably less noise when played with than hard plastic tires.
Apart from innovative strength and plastics technology expertise, BRUDER places great emphasis on resources management in the interest of a sustainable economy. An internal recycling circuit and energy-efficient production processes, combined with a range of about 800 spare part sets for repairs to BRUDER toys, are testament to the company’s ecological responsibility. In addition to in-house recycling of sprue and rejects using two granulators operating in the company’s basement, a continuous search for further opportunities to save energy remains ongoing. Another contribution to sustainable management practices is the company’s preference given to co-operation with local partners.
BRUDER uses a great variety of different technologies to make its plastic toys, such as the internal gas pressure process, which offers the advantages of reducing weight and saving material input. BRUDER also makes use of multi-component technology right up to five-component injection moulding. This enables the production of parts consisting of several different materials and/or in several colours by a single injection moulding process.
BRUDER’s most important criteria for injection moulding machines are high precision, reliability, stability, energy efficiency and a small footprint.
Bernd Klemm, Department Manager of Injection Molding, said: “Energy efficiency is gaining increasingly in significance; space is another important resource. This is why the machine’s footprint is also such an important buying argument for us.”
The positive experience of BRUDER Spielwaren with Wittmann in robotics and handling systems, in which the two companies have been co-operating for more than 20 years, prompted BRUDER to install a first injection moulding machine from Wittmann’s servo-hydraulic SmartPower series in 2020. Five more have been added this year. Of the six machines, with clamping forces ranging from 600 to 1,600 kN, two are equipped with a WS80 servo picker from Wittmann, and a SmartPower 60 was delivered as an Insider cell with a Wittmann Primus 14 robot. In addition to the robot, a conveyor belt and the protective housing are also integrated in the cell, which makes the entire system extremely compact. Moreover, one of the machines is fitted with a hot embossing system.
Compact and user-friendly, the machines of the SmartPower series stand out by their intelligent and economical use of energy – mainly due to the combination of a fast-response, speed-controlled, air-cooled servo motor with a sturdy constant displacement pump known as the ‘drive-on-demand’ system. In this system, the drive unit is only active as long as required for movements and pressure generation. During cooling times and cycle breaks for parts handling, the servo drive remains switched off and consumes no energy.
Production Manager at BRUDER Sönke Haverich added: “Our experience with the machines delivered so far has been all positive. The machines take up little space and meet all our demands in terms of precision and speed.”