Uniloy, W&H, & more talk SPI machinery stats, overall outlook

The Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI) recently released its Equipment Council's Committee on Equipment Statistics (CES) Cross Sector Analysis for Fourth Quarter 2012. The stats revealed that 2012 was a solid year for North American plastics machinery, with orders for injection molding machines, blown-film lines, auxiliary equipment, thermoforming equipment, and hot runners all up as compared to 2011.

The only market truly off in 2012 was the blowmolding segment. There, the total number of new of blowmolding machines ordered in 2012 was 67 units, down 18 from 2011, with the full-year dollar value off 34%.

PlasticsToday talked with key players in their respective fields to get their take on the stats and overall market trends.

Morneault didn't have exact sales numbers for Wittmann Battenfeld, but said that the volume of molding machines sold in the U.S. exceeded expectations.

"When you look at our business in comparison to the rest of the market, we have made incredible gains in the market and on our competition, which is always a good thing for us," he said. "So both the sheer increase in volume and by units in our market share has been positive and has continued on to 2013. I think we've been forecasting a better year for injection molding in U.S. and that's a great thing."

This positive news is a switch from several years ago when the Battenfeld entity had fallen off from a global perspective, he said.

"It had really turned into a shell of a company, but when we purchased them we really stimulated the feeling that we're back, not only internally but with customers," he said. "We're Wittmann and we're here to stay. We brought a lot of that loyalty back."

As far as global sales, Morneault said the company has seen gains in the Americas, Asia continues to be an "unbelievable market," while Europe is a little softer. He said there have been solid sales in both hybrid and electric machines, and he believes Wittmann Battenfeld offers a good mix across the whole tonnage range.

"It's looking pretty positive for 2013," he said. "I think automotive is the one industry that is really driving it, and there is some packaging, but seems to be more opportunity in automotive than other markets."

"Excited about blowmolding"

Dave Skala, VP of Uniloy North America, said that 2011 was a particularly strong year for the company in terms of new blowmolding orders, making up for the years of 2008-2010, when customers were more hesitant.

Still, he feels that in the early part of 2012, a lot of customers were still digesting capacity, which he believes attributes to one reason why overall blowmolding figures were down in 2012. Orders in the U.S. were a little slow, but Skala said they maintained a steady pace.

"I think orders in U.S. were down, but overall we were not down nearly as much as the data shows; we held steady in 2012 and 2013 is showing an up tick," he said.

Going forward, Skala expects the second half of 2013 will be fairly robust for blowmolding.

"We've been enjoying very good years and we feel confident in our customer base we have out there," he said. "We're excited about blowmolding."

He said the SPI data only reports on what is sold in the U.S. and where Uniloy has the advantage is that it spends a lot of time growing in emerging markets.

"Per capital spending has increased there, which gives us more opportunity with larger packages than the more traditional packaging that you see in the U.S.," Skala said. "The winners are going to be the guys that come up with machines that create high integrity packaging, which lends yourself to multilayer and different materials that give you various performance capabilities as well as barrier properties."

2012 was a strong year

Andrew Wheeler, VP of Windmoeller & Hoelscher Corp. (W&H), said that the company doesn't measure its sales on a quarterly basis, but overall in 2012 it had a strong year.

"Presses, particularly flexographic presses, represent the largest percentage of our machine sales, but blown film lines sales are almost as strong," he said.

Business conditions for 2013 seem relatively unchanged. Wheeler said a big concern of many was tax breaks being rescinded, but that hasn't happened and "customers still seem bullish about the industry right now." Also, Wheeler said a lot of new printing capacity has come out on the market and there will be a need for more extrusion capability to meet it.

The market for cast film will grow slowly, he said. Currently, the biggest segment for cast film is stretch, while CPP and barrier films also have a place, but aren't growing as drastically. The company continues to grow in the Midwest and Canada and is also seeing more movement on the West Coast.

Remaining steady

Jim Murphy, VP of global product management for Davis-Standard, said that some markets were up and others were down, however, overall the North America extrusion market was strong in 2012, but still has room to grow.

There was some improvements in automotive and in building products, as "folks are making investments in retooling their plants or adding capacity and innovation to products."

"Packaging is steady, we saw some things there, I think plastics in certain markets gain a share versus alternative materials," he said. "Medical is steady, those are some key markets for extrusion."

In addition to extrusion, Davis-Standard participates in the industrial blowmolding segment.

"The blowmolding market, I think last year was okay, there is some more activity as we turn the calendar, but similar to what we talk about with extrusion, steady improvement but nothing significant," he said.