At Engel, it’s all in the family

The tie-bar-less family, that is. This year Engel is celebrating 25 years of tie-bar-less technology, a design principle that has proven to be enduringly successful. The company unveiled the newest addition to the family at Fakuma 2014, here in Friedrichshafen: the e-motion 50TL.

Like its smaller sibling the e-motion 30 TL, which was introduced at K 2013, the new 50TL features a one-piece machine frame that makes it lighter and more compact that comparable all-electric machines of other makes.

The new e-motion, said Engel CTO Stefan Engleder, offers outstanding platen parallelism. Thanks to the preloading of the patented force divider, the platen parallelism remains constant, even when the mold is mounted. The force divider also ensures that the clamping force is distributed evenly throughout the platens.

The clamping unit is extremely clean, with oil-filled bushings reducing wear and a closed-loop lubrication system that reduces lubricant consumption by up to 90%.

The company also launched its brand-new Engel e-pic pick and place robot developed, said Engleder, in response to huge customer demand for energy-efficient, flexible and, at the same time, standardized robots for simple handling tasks. "The e-pic is designed for maximum performance with maximum economy," he said. "It's easy to use, requiring no programming skills. It combines linear motion with 'hybrid' kinematics, and is easily integrated into the machine's housing." Equipped with its own control unit, the robot can also be used with other machine makes, as the electronics are completely integrated with the mechanical superstructure. The Engel e-pic is designed for horizontal and vertical part removal and handling of small parts and sprues with a load-bearing capacity of up to 2 kg. It is deployed on injection molding machines with clamping forces up to 2,200 kN.

It's innovative thinking of this kind that continues to drive growth at Engel. As Peter Neumann, the CEO of Engel Holding GmbH, speaking at Fakuma, said: "We are working at a good level of utilization across all plants. All told, the global markets continue to be stable, even though political conflicts have weakened individual regions." For the current fiscal year, which ends in March 2015, the company expects 7% growth in turnover, which would mean it would pass the one billion euro mark in sales for the first time.

Engel generated some 54% of its turnover in Europe, while America accounted for 25% and Asia for 21. In 2014, market share increased further, especially in Europe and Asia.

Neumann also noted that in the automotive market, the lightweight design trend is behind the increasing investment in innovation. "We have only seen the beginning of lightweight automotive engineering," says Peter Neumann. "In the field of fiber composite engineering in particular, we can look forward to strong growth in the injection molding industry in the next few years." The biggest challenge to is to develop manufacturing processes that allow for low unit costs despite high-volumes.

Excellent global growth was achieved in packaging and medical. Process integration and automation are two of the strongest innovation drivers, said Christophe Seger, Engel CSO. "The trend towards automation is particularly pronounced in the emerging markets, such as China, Southeast Asia and South America," he noted. To which Neumann added: "The portion of system solutions is thus steadily increasing in our order books."

Family matters

And next to celebrating the success of the tie-bar-less machine family, Engel has other important family traditions as well. The company has been 100% family-owned since it was founded in 1945. Neumann, a member of the owning family's third generation, was flanked at the Fakuma conference by Stefan Engleder and Christoph Steger, both of whom represent the fourth generation of the owning family. As CTO and CSO, both are members of the Board of Directors with operational responsibility.