KGL_new
Company News

German plastics and rubber

As expected, in 2019 the soaring rise in turnover of the past years has come to a halt: German plastics and rubber machinery manufacturers had to resign themselves to a turnover fall of 6 per cent. "However, after 11 years of growth this break did not come as a surprise for the industry," Ulrich Reifenhäuser, Chairman of the VDMA trade association Plastics and Rubber Machinery, puts it in a nutshell. "In many major customer industries, above all the automotive sector, signs suggested investment restraint, something that had already become clear for a while when looking at the order books. Moreover, there is the image problem of plastics," Reiferhäuser adds.

Child-oriented packaging

Have you ever heard of International Parking Offenders’ Day (February 11), International Pillow Fight Day (first Sunday in April), International Lost Sock Day (May 9), International Hairstyle Day (April 30), National Toilet Paper Day (August 26), or International Hand-Washing Day (October 15)? The last three have been practically attributed prophetic significance this year. However, we do not want to focus our attention on these unusual days but rather on those which do actually make sense, such as National Packaging Day (June 6), whose campaigns have been postponed until next year on account of the pandemic, “Trendtag Glas”(usually in September but now likewise postponed until next year), Child Safety Day (June 10) which primarily concerns product safety and whose campaigns have been postponed until the second half of the year, or Baby Day (May 2), originating in the USA but which ensures more focused concentration on the well-being of the smallest citizens here and offers numerous tips on baby care and nutrition.

Supply chain strategies changing

To gain insight into the European plastics industry’s business performance and outlook, PIE – Plastics Information Europe conducted its half-year readers survey from 15 June to 17 July 2020. Across regions and plastics sectors, a surprising number of companies showed economic resilience to the coronavirus. Two thirds of over 140 respondents surveyed reported that business performance in the first half of 2020 was the same as that in the first half of 2019, while only 13% said it was worse.

Digitalisation increases production efficiency

As an industry pioneer, Arburg works intensively and practically with the question of how to use digitalisation to increase production efficiency when processing plastics. In the program arburgXworld, the company has intelligently and clearly collected all of its digital products and services as well as the customer portal of the same name. Besides “smarter” machine technology and innovative solutions in the service area, the central customer portal arburgXworld, with its numerous apps, is given a key position. There are now four packages to that end, which contain various apps and configuration levels.

Arburg despite corona: “Wir sind da.”

Arburg has responded to the Corona crisis very early on with great prudence and excellent know-how. Thanks to that, the machine manufacturer based in Lossburg considers itself well-positioned for the future after the pandemic, in terms of technology, know-how and organisation: production continues to progress and the development of innovative solutions for injection moulding, industrial additive manufacturing and progress in digitalisation is being driven forward. In order to contain the pandemic, Arburg produced high-quality masks and safety goggles very quickly at its headquarters in Lossburg as proof of its technology.

Sonoco Acquires Paper Can Solutions Producer

Sonoco (NYSE: SON), one of the largest global diversified packaging companies, today announced it has acquired Can Packaging, a privately owned designer and manufacturer of sustainable paper packaging and related manufacturing equipment, based in Habsheim, France, for total consideration of €41.7 million, or approximately $49 million.

SÜDPACK DRIVES CHEMICAL RECYCLING

There is growing pressure in industry and society to improve the recyclability of plastics and to establish a closed-loop recycling system for this highly versatile packaging material. SÜDPACK, one of Europe’s leading film manufacturers, is a major driver of innovation in the industry. The company is increasingly focusing on chemical recycling of plastic waste and developing high-tech packaging films from the recovered raw materials. These raw materials have the same properties as virgin polymers and this way are suitable for packaging products with high quality and hygiene requirements, including foodstuffs. The company’s activities in this area reflect its own sustainability philosophy as well as the interests of its customers.

KHS and ALPLA Group returnable PET bottle

“Reduce, reuse, recycle”: for the KHS Group these three pillars of sustainability are a composite part of its corporate philosophy. The manufacturer of filling and packaging technology consistently focuses on resource-saving, recycling-friendly systems and solutions. Together with Austrian packaging expert ALPLA KHS has now developed a returnable PET container that at 55 grams is extremely light. The 1.0-liter bottle’s high recyclate content of 35% also has a very positive effect on its overall ecobalance.

Laboratory system for plastic containers

Agr International has unveiled their latest development, the Gawis 4D™, an all-in-one measurement system for plastic containers and preforms. Designed to automate a number of critical bottle and preform measurements into a single operation, this totally new laboratory test system provides a new level of measurement capabilities to support the design, process and quality management of plastic containers and preforms.
Polecane