Arburg Debuts ‘freeformer’ Additive Manufacturing Tech in China
The world tour of Arburg’s freeformer additive manufacturing platform continues with its Asian launch at Chinaplas and addition of local staff to support it.
After its global debut at the K Show in 2013 and its North American launch in April at NPE2015, Arburg presents its freeformer technology to the Asian market for the first time at Chinaplas 2015 in Guangzhou. Helmut Heinson, managing director sales at Arburg, also announced a designated space for the technology at its subsidiary in Shenzhen, as well as an additive manufacturing manager, Wei Yen Lim.
Arburg brought two freeformers to Guangzhou producing functional parts for the electronics and cosmetic packaging industries. Specifically, with the machines second discharge unit adding a special supporting material that’s removed in a water bath, the freeformers made spray caps in two sizes, as well as a mobile housing and gear card.
Three injection molding machines will also be on Arburg’s stand:
- Hybrid Allrounder 570H molding four thin-walled 200-ml butter tubs in 3.2 seconds
- An 1800 kN press running a 2+2 cavity stack mold for an in-mold label application
- Electric Allrounder 470 E molding prefillable syringe barrels from cyclic olefin polymer (COP)
Record Turnover
Heinson also took the opportunity to reveal preliminary financial results for Arburg in 2014. Noting that these are not yet verified final figures, Heinson said the company had record consolidated turnover in 2014 of euro 548 million, 15% above 2013. Also of note, capital investments in 2014 totaled euro 15.8 million, 20% higher than the year prior. Staffing was also up 6.4% to 2400 worldwide, with 2000 of those based in Germany.
