Chinaplas 2016: Arburg has another record year; shows Freeformer for medical part prototyping

German machinery maker Arburg’s Managing Director of Sales, Gerhard Böhm, who took over from Helmut Heinson as he has retired, said the company had a successful financial year in 2015. “Though the turnover figure is not final yet, at the moment, we can say that consolidated turnover together with our worldwide subsidiaries amounted to around EUR580 million in 2015, another new record for Arburg,” he added.

He went on to say, “Almost 93% of our orders are from our own organisations. The value of incoming orders (machinery and peripherals) in 2015, were 16% above 2014 .”

“Our balance sheet is getting better in conjunction with the new products we have launched,” said Böhm.

In terms of Arburg in China, Toni Tong, Managing Director of Arburg China said the company expects to ramp up its capabilities at its warehouse, which offers retrofitting and specification of adding parts to machines from Germany.

In China, the company has 78 employees in total with 30 in service and 11 in applications technology. “We have also further enhanced our capabilities with training of employees at our headquarters in Lossburg, Germany.”

Böhm was also positive for the Chinese market, adding that Arburg caters to high end applications and parts and thus, has not been affected by the slowdown in China.

“First quarter sales for China was ahead, compared to 2015 first quarter, and though we are unable to predict sales for the rest of the year, we expect a stable level compared to last year’s intake,” he said.

Freeformer/Allrounder for medical parts

As for the Freeformer for additive manufacturing that was first premiered at the K show in 2013 and launched last year, Böhm said Arburg is working with some materials and will introduce new applications later this year.

At Chinaplas 2016, Arburg is showing a Freeformer producing pill splitters for medical technology use from PC – not in large volumes, like the Allrounder, but in small unit volumes without a mould. Böhm said Arburg is the only company able to achieve this.

Once the supporting structures have been removed in a water bath, the two-piece articulated part can be used as a design prototype or for functional tests, for example. This means that expensive aluminium moulds can be dispensed with and new products can reach series maturity much faster.

Using the Arburg Plastic Freeforming (APF) process, the Freeformer manufactures functional parts on the basis of 3D CAD data. It processes inexpensive, qualified plastic granulates and is equipped with two stationary discharge units as standard. This enables the Freeformer to process an additional component in order, for example, to manufacture a part in different colours, with special tactile qualities or as a hard/soft combination. Alternatively, it can be used to build structures from a water-soluble support material, enabling complex part geometries to be realised.

Arburg is also demonstrating the production of pill splitters, made from PC on an 8-cavity mould, on an electric Allrounder. The cycle time is around 25 seconds and the part weigh is 18 g.

The company says that thanks to its great precision and speed, as well as its low emissions, the electric injection moulding machine is ideally suited for the production of medical technology articles. A Multilift Select robotic system from Arburg is used for demoulding.

(IMA)