The Warwick-based subsidiary of ARBURG GmbH, hosted the UK’s ‘Technology on Tour 2008’ event, one of fifty technology seminars taking place around the world. ARBURG has arranged presentations and discussions to its customers with a focus on its corporate objective, energy efficiency from both a theoretical and practical perspective. The object was to help participants become more aware of the issues surrounding energy efficiency, to highlight the wide range of energy saving potential and to advise on appropriate changes to optimise injection moulding processes.

Held over the 10th and 11th June, with over 50 attendees on each day, ‘Technology on Tour 2008’ covered a variety of topics: automation, cleanrooms and machinery, ‘Energy Efficiency Allround’, ARBURG’s new shift valve technology, hydraulic v electric technologies, mould heating, two shot tooling and Wacker LSR grade selection. Automation solutions reviewed two case studies, The first study demonstrated a high degree of autonomy thanks to a clever layout and the conveyor belt system allowing replacement of crates at any stage of the process. The second case study described how production costs could be cut through the integration of upstream and downstream operations for the production of a housing. In both cases the machine, robot and downstream were supplied by ARBURG.

Andreas Reich, from ARBURG GmbH Export sales, introduced the topic of ARBURG ALLROUNDERs in clean room production, discussing the basic principles of clean room technology, clean room concepts with supporting examples of working within both medical and technical clean-room environments.
 
Richard Tickner, Southern Area Sales Engineer from ARBURG Ltd, described the background to ARBURG’s approach - ‘a company which uses energy efficiently’, offering an overview of energy efficient products and the green nature manufacturing plant in Lossburg.

John Goff, G & A Moulding Technology presented a performance evaluation of ARBURG’s new shift valve technology on a standard hydraulic ARBURG ALLROUNDER 470 S, 100 tonne machine, concluding that the performance capability of this machine was “impressively below the target of 0.4% weight variation, proving to be a highly suitable machine for the moulding of technical components”. Even when G & A tested the machine to its extreme processing limits only using 5% of the shot capacity the results were still well within the tolerances set.

Michael Gort, from ARBURG’s International Technical Support team introduced the concept of multi-component injection moulding technology, explaining the various different tooling options, Michael showed a case study of a table tennis bat manufactured using the two shot process where the part was removed via a robot system whilst the tool was closed thus saving cycle time.

Wacker Chemie AG were on hand to give advice on LSR selection and application. The main focus of the Wacker presentations was to explain the advance in self bonding and oil bleeding liquid silicone rubbers, an example of which was being demonstrated on the ARBURG electric two shot machine.

Also on demonstration were 15 exhibits, including an ARBURG machine with take out robot moulding at sub 2,2 seconds, an ARBURG 35 tonne machine prepared for cleanroom moulding to class 7 feeding in to a soft/hard wall cleanroom module the complete range of the GOLDEN EDITION range as well as an extensive range of ancillaries by Motan. With decades of experience and extensive process knowledge, ARBURG is well-placed as a central point of contact and offers its customers a wide range of consulting services on the subject of energy efficient production.

Stephan Doehler, European Sales Director, ARBURG GmbH, who attended the event, commented: “We wanted the ‘Technology on Tour’ events to be as close to our customers as possible, covering a variety of topics, from clean rooms to energy efficiency. Our approach is to seek pragmatic solutions, without being too theoretical, with our target being the wider horizon, where everyone can ‘look behind the plate’. “Our aim is to always bring the latest technology to our customers, through the perfect combination of the most advanced machines supported by the most expert technicians. However, these events include not only ARBURG engineers, but experts from other companies. This is what has made the ‘Technology on Tour’ events so attractive to our partners in the industry – we ‘live’ our network, adding knowledge and creating discussion wherever possible”.

“Everyone who buys an ARBURG knows they are part of the ARBURG ‘family’. “Our philosophy has always been, and will remain, not to sell anything our customers don’t actually need. We consider our products to be very much a la carte, rather than the set menu. Our international reputation as a technological leader for our customers’ diverse and future needs has been very much founded on this philosophy.

“ARBURG is grateful for our partners’ contribution to making these events so successful. We are clearly united in our determination to improve efficiencies, in terms of energy savings and subsequent cost reduction.” Colin Tirel, Managing Director, ARBURG UK, concluded: “I am delighted that the ‘Technology on Tour’ days were such a success. They demonstrated our close working relationship with our partners, fundamental to our reputation as a global leader in the design and production of technologically advanced injection moulding machines. We pride ourselves on our aftersales service, and events such as these prove our ongoing commitment to our customer base. I would like to thank the people who attended and contributed and we hope everyone involved gained as much from the seminars as we did.”