Additive Manufacturing | ΕΠΕΞΕΡΓΑΣΙΑ ΜΕΤΑΛΛΩΝ - ΠΛΑΣΤΙΚΩΝ
Lossburg, 07/07/2021
From machine manufacturer to think tank: a lot has changed at Arburg in recent years. The new film “Arburg Insights” offers fascinating insights into current developments and activities. This film is Arburg’s way of inviting you to take a look behind the scenes at important points and stay up to date. The focus in on the big issues of digitalisation, sustainability, drives, and control system, which are explained in more detail by Managing Directors Gerhard Böhm and Guido Frohnhaus. At the same time, the film should also make you want to visit Arburg in Lossburg again.
“Even in times where travelling is not possible or only possible under difficult conditions, we would like to reach out to our customers wordwide and provide them with first-hand information about what we are working on here in Lossburg,” says Dr Christoph Schumacher, Head of Marketing and Corportate Communications, explaining the intention for the new film. To achieve this, he takes Guido Marschall on a tour of the company during which he meets Managing Directors Gerhard Boehm (Sales and Service) and Guido Frohnhaus (Technology & Engineering).
The film is available at www.arburg.com and on the “ARBURGofficial” YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtLXzuiUGCE).
arburgXworld: customer portal in global demand
With Gerhard Böhm, we first go to the Digitalisation Infopoint, where he explains the company’s strategy and stresses the success of the customer portal: “Over 2,000 customers worldwide have registered with ‘arburgXworld’, and that means 6,000 users.” As further proof of the importance of the Arburg portal on the market, he cites the feedback from a webinar where 80 per cent of the participants said that the tools would make their everyday work much easier. The Managing Director highlights a few apps as examples of this: “Shop” with its attractive spare part offers, “Calendar”, and “AnalyticsCenter”, which can be used to document processes and trace them even retrospectively.
arburgGREENworld: application examples for circular economy
From “arburgXworld”, we move on to “arburgGREENworld”, which brings together everything regarding sustainability and CO2 reduction. Gerhard Böhm presents the innovative R-Cycle application live in the Customer Center, where a cup with DM codes is produced. One code is used to get to the product passport, which contains information on the material and manufacturing process and, among other things, enables separation in sorting plants. As another example for this, he presents the marking of products using a “CurveCode”, which is transferred from the mould to the injection moulded part.
Sustainable in-house production: planetary roller screw drive
Guido Frohnhaus explains that sustainability is of great importance to Arburg and plays a particularly central role in its own products and in-house production: “This is where we can show what we are capable of as inventors, engineers, and an innovative company.” As an example of this sustainability, he cites the planetary roller screw drive, which Arburg developed itself for its injection moulding machines and manufactures at the company’s headquarters. “For this component, conservation of resources starts with its creation in Lossburg and continues through to the production at the customers’, where it ensures stable injection moulding processes and offers a long service life.” In view of its high quality, Arburg has extended the guarantee for these planetary roller screw drives to five years.
From a single source: control system and drive technology
Next is the topic of control system as an important interface between humans and machines. “All the innovative developments in machines are useless if you can’t operate them easily and safely,” says Guido Frohnhaus. This is exactly where the trend-setting Gestica control system comes in, efficiently supporting the operator in handling even in the most complex processes.
On the topic of drive technology, the Managing Director Technology & Engineering explained the advantages that result from integrating the drive specialist AMKmotion in the Arburg family: “In this way, we are able to have full control and influence over the powertrain and we become a one-stop shop in terms of development work”.
Two perspectives on one world
After extensive input on the issues of digitalisation and sustainability relating to arburgXworld and arburgGREENworld, Guido Marshall finally wants to know how the two belong together. Dr Christoph Schumacher sums it up succinctly: “In our think tank, we view our one world from two perspectives in order to ultimately make it better.”
Broad range of information
In addition to a visit to its headquarters in Lossburg, Arburg offers many more options to keep up-to-date. These include, e.g., explainer videos, arburgXvision – a monthly live TV show on the internet – and the Technology Days, which will take place from 16 to 19 March, 2022.
About Arburg
German family-owned company Arburg is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of plastic processing machines. Its product portfolio encompasses Allrounder injection moulding machines with clamping forces of between 125 and 6,500 kN, the Freeformer for industrial additive manufacturing and robotic systems, customer and industry-specific turnkey solutions and further peripheral equipment.
An international sales and service network ensures first-class customer support at a local level: Arburg has its own organisations at 35 locations in 26 different countries and, together with its trading partners, is represented in more than 100 countries. Its machines are produced exclusively at the company’s German headquarters in Lossburg. Of a total of roughly 3,200 employees, around 2,650 work in Germany. About 550 further employees work in Arburg’s organisations around the world. Arburg has triple certification, in accordance with ISO 9001 (quality), ISO 14001 (environment) and ISO 50001 (energy).
Further information about Arburg can be found at www.arburg.com