ENGEL at the Fakuma - One Step Ahead

The current economic situation sees the industry facing major challenges. This makes it all the more important to achieve a sustainable position today, and to invest in the future. At Fakuma 2008, ENGEL is presenting its latest developments and milestones by the entire group. A very positive résumé, which again goes to prove that ENGEL is a guarantor of long-term success.

As reported previously, ENGEL again looks back on an extremely successful business year 07/08. With turnover totalling 622 million euros, the company achieved the highest returns in its history, with considerable growth within the last two years. Turnover of some 360 million euros in the first six months of 08/09 again point to considerable growth at this early stage. In 2007, our market share grew to 23 percent. In the first six months of 2008 our share of the European manufacturing market was 25.6 percent.

New Sales Structures
The ENGEL group has founded five new sales facilities since May 2006. ENGEL Russia was the first. In 2007, ENGEL Benelux, ENGEL Brazil and ENGEL Romania followed. The latest addition is the facility in Turkey, which opened up in May 2008. In opening its own sales facilities, ENGEL is following its customers into global markets and thus reinforcing its comprehensive consultancy and service competencies.
 
Investment
To grow, you need to invest – even in times like these. ENGEL relies on the following pillars:

• Investment in production capacity
  Right now, several million euros are going into the extension of production capacity in the form of a new machine shop building at St. Valentin. The assembly area of the dual-platen machine series will be enlarged by 6,000 sqm, so that the total capacity in St. Valentin will be 68,000 sqm. On top of this, construction work is in progress on a new building for our production facility in Kaplice/Czech Republic with a total of 17,000 sqm.

• Investment in new products
  The presentation of the new, compact ENGEL e-max at K 2007 was a milestone that extended the fully-electrical range. This is followed in 2008 by the introduction of the "little big machine", the ENGEL duo 500 pico, which scores points thanks mainly to its energy-saving design and its dry-cycle time of just 2.6 seconds, which makes it the fastest dual platen machine on the market. On top of this, the servo-hydraulic drive has been introduced to the e-victory machine range – the alternative for energy saving production with tiebar-less benefits

• Investment in customer proximity and application technology consulting
  The new Technology Centre, which is under construction in Schwertberg (1st section already in use), and which represents a further significant investment in the history of ENGEL, will be completed in May 2009. Step by step, Technical Development with an ultramodern technical centre, small to medium-scale machine design and quality assurance, and the ENGEL training centre, sales and marketing, and human resources will slowly move together. The customer technology centre at the large-scale machine works in St. Valentin has also been renovated and optimised; it now offers perfect conditions for consultancy and for demonstrating the machines built at the works.

ENGEL Strengthens System Integration
ENGEL sees itself as a provider of integrated system solutions. This means: single source injection moulding technology. Machines, project planning for injection moulds, automation, processes, training and service are all perfectly integrated within ENGEL. In particular, the founding of Mould Project Planning in October 2007 constitutes an important step towards extending ENGEL's system integration capabilities. The current team of eight handles the following tasks: selection of a suitable mould partner, project management including final approval, technical consultancy and recommendation of appropriate partners. On top of this, the range of training services is optimised on an ongoing basis, especially with respect to cooperation seminars.

Innovation Thanks to Partnerships
Partnerships play an important role in development and application technology. For example, the ENGEL duo compounder was implemented in collaboration with Leistritz Extrusionstechnik and the Institute of Chemical Technology. Other innovative projects include: ongoing development of wood-plastic compounds, dynamic mould temperature control with infrared heating (in cooperation with Johnson Controls, PCCL and Borealis), and the development of a system for scratch-resilient coating of injection moulded parts with PUR (partners: Votteler, Hennecke).

"Our greatest achievement on today's markets is customer satisfaction", says Dr. Peter Neumann, CEO ENGEL Holding. "The stability of our market presence, and our focus on innovations, which give our customers a winning technological or economic margin compared to their competitors, are our strengths."