Arburg’s Anniversary Days: a showcase of resilience and innovation

At the Anniversary Days held last week at its headquarters in Lossburg, plastics machinery manufacturer Arburg demonstrated to the world just how far the industry and the company has come in the course of a century. In celebration of its 100-year milestone, the company had not only filled the customer centre with exhibits showing new and innovative products and technologies, it also created a highly informative timeline illustrating its progress and development over the course of the years. It underlined the fact that, if the company built its reputation on integrity, quality and ‘substance over style’, its successful development is thanks to ‘inventiveness and daring, flashes of inspiration and business ideas, evolutionary developments and disruptive leaps, people and technology, regional ties and global growth’, said Michael Hehl at the press conference prior to the opening of the event. 

Sustainability is in its DNA, he added, pointing to the many energy and resource saving measures implemented by the company at its facilities around the world.

As a result, the company has prospered. According to Jürgen Boll, the managing director of finance and IT, Arburg achieved sales of €875 million in 2022; a 19% increase compared to 2021, and for two-thirds due, he said, to the increase in volume. Price increases accounted for the remaining one-third.

The current situation, he added, is good: the order book is ‘in good shape’ and production is in line with the planning, at least for the first six months. However, Gerhard Böhm, the managing director of sales, added the caveat that while 2022 did indeed go well, incoming orders during the second half of the year lagged behind the first half. “December, which went very well, could not make up for the previous five months,” he noted.

Arburg has also continued to invest, despite challenges such as supply bottlenecks and the geopolitical situation. The company benefits from its central location, high level of flexibility, a high proportion of in-house production and short supply chains - all factors that have contributed to its resilience over the past century. It invested some €26 million in manufacturing technology, production logistics and infrastructure  in 2022 alone. The company is also continuing to expand its portfolio of digital solutions, to further support customers on their transition towards a digitalised manufacturing environment. For example, today, all digital services are now also available in app form, for mobile devices, said Boll.

The company says it is supporting its customers in another way as well. As Gerhard Böhm pointed out, energy efficiency and the topic of saving energy ‘is not new to us’ - Arburg has, over the years, developed a considerable number of energy-saving solutions for customers, which the company has now combined into its ‘Action Plan: Energy’.

This plan includes measures such as retrofitting machines with energy-efficient motors and insulating the cylinders; digital services that display a machines energy requirements, energy consumption measurements, training and consulting services.

In this regard, he added, when we talk about energy efficiency, we are talking about electric drives ‘whose importance continues to grow steadily’.

It is the reason why Arburg’s special anniversary machine  - the Allrounder 470 H is equipped with an electric clamping unit. “Electric drives reduce the energy requirement and hence the operating costs and carbon footprint,” said Guido Frohnhaus, Arburg’s managing director of technology and engineering. The hydraulic injection unit lowers the purchase price and is extremely robust, he added.

The new machine features flow rate splitting for simultaneous movements of hydraulic secondary axes and a new oil management concept that includes predictive maintenance for filter changes and oil pump inspection, helping to conserve resources by reducing oil use by around 35% and by using waste machine heat to pre-heat the oil. The required cooling water capacity is between 50 and 70% lower than previous models and dry cycle time has been reduced by up to 33%. The machine offers a 50% better energy balance compared to purely hydraulic machines. 

While the anniversary machine took pride of place, there was much more on display as well. Other exhibits included a flexible turnkey solution for LSR injection moulding, a 520 S 1600-400 that was processing post-consumer recyclate, a 570 S 2200-800 processing a bioplastic material; the TiQ range of FDM printers and next to these, the freeformers.

A special area, called arburgGREENworld, was reserved for sustainability, where the company was highlighting its circular economy programme and the collaboration with its partners in this space: Borealis, R-Cycle, Moretto, Erema, and HKS.