Productivity goes hand in hand
Dr Urbanek, author of the Euromap study "Energy Efficiency: European Plastics and Rubber Machines Well Placed", sees close links between energy efficiency and productivity. "Investing for greater productivity generally also means investing in energy efficiency," he says.

The potential savings highlighted by the study satisfy thetrict criteria laid down by the European Commission to cut European energy consumption by 20% by 2020.

The study looked at the main plastics and rubber processing technologies, ie. injection moulding, extrusion, blow moulding and thermoforming, which account for around 90% of the total volume processed.

Looking back, the author determined that production efficiency has almost doubled in 20 years and plastics machinery's specific energy consumption is down 30%.

The study also reports that machines are now capable of a manufacturing output that would once have required twice as many machines of similar size. Developments in manufacturing technology have provided a significant performance boost. The demands made on hydraulic systems have resulted in greater efficiency and cut the energy consumption of injection moulding machines by around 40%.

The throughput capacity of extrusion machines has also doubled over the same period. Machine-related energy consumption has been reduced by around 20%. The same is true in compounding: twice the amount of material is being processed with machine-related energy consumption down by 20% at the same time.

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