Energy Efficiency Tops the Bill at Arburg’s 100th Birthday Party for Hehl Family Company

Energy efficiency and sustainable plastic processing featured heavily as Arburg Ltd. welcomed a full house of over 100 customers, employees and friends to celebrate 100 years of the Hehl family company.

Guests saw the first UK showing of a new energy-efficient 470 H hybrid machine, plus automation and pad printing solutions, hear several expert presentations on energy saving, hot runner technology, the circular economy and robotic automation, and learn about 100 years of the family-owned company.

It is rare that one can wish “Happy 100th Birthday” to a person or a business. Arburg Ltd. opened its doors to customers – including many of its oldest and largest UK customers – on 17th May to celebrate this special anniversary of its founder, the Hehl family company.

The original company was founded by Arthur Hehl and his wife Maria in 1923 to produce medical equipment and then later flashlights for photography. The company needed a moulding solution for its products so in 1954 developed a simple injection moulding press, that proved incredibly popular with other companies. By 1956 the serial production of injection moulding machines in Lossburg had begun, and this phase was now driven by the Hehl’s sons Karl and Eugene Hehl.

Guests joined Arburg from across the UK and Ireland representing all segments of the moulding industry; from Portsmouth to Manchester, from Galway in Ireland to Suffolk, as well as five colleagues from Arburg HQ in Lossburg, Germany.

Energy efficiency has been at the top of all moulders’ minds this year and guests witnessed the UK premiere of the new ARBURG 470 H 1000 400 hybrid Anniversary energy efficient machine – the 100-tonne “Premium” model – fitted with a new 8kg Multilift robot system and automation turnkey cell. The machine featured GESTICA control technology.

Best practice shared by experts

Expert presentations and discussions covered sustainability and recycling, energy, digitalisation and increasing your machine’s OEE and included the following talks.

Energy efficiency across the process chain:

Lukas Krueger, Arburg’s Applications Energy Consulting expert, explained that energy-saving across the entire plastics process chain must be analysed and applied. Companies that can optimise each stage, from project design to machine technology to close contour cooling, cylinder insulation and more stand to save thousands of pounds in energy costs. His presentation is covered in a separate ARBURG release.

Sustainability in plastics:

Dr Robin Kent of Tangram Technology delivered a Q&A about the future of the planet and sustainability. Signed copies of Robin’s book ‘Sustainability Management in Plastics Processing’, published by the British Plastics Federation, were given to guests.

Robin said: “We have produced a textbook with the BPF on the sustainability of plastics processing. My talk was about making companies aware that environmental sustainability is not the only type, it includes economic and societal sustainability. The data shows that for most people in the world life is improving, with higher health metrics, vaccination rates, more women are being educated, life expectancy is higher – there is a positive sustainability picture.”

Energy:

Reiner Heendeniya, Sales Director of Günther UK Ltd, presented on “BlueFlow®” hot runner technology, a process that can save up to 50% energy consumption.
Reiner said: “Since 2010 Gunther has had the most energy-efficient hot runner nozzle on the market by using thin film technology, called BlueFlow, that took 10 years to develop. In the UK it accounts for about 70% of our sales, and we’re looking to use about 50% less energy than our competitors. Aligned to the film we use a bi-metallic titanium shaft, a Gunther patent, that keeps heat in the nozzle so we do not lose too much in the mould tool.”

Circular business:

Giorgio Santella, Managing Director CMG Granulators, on behalf of Piovan UK, presented on the circular economy. Giorgio showed how three scenarios of workload in a plastic granulator process – constant, cyclical and variable workloads, and how with CMG’s technology each type could reduce different amounts of energy consumption, with some variable workload scenarios saving 40% energy over the incumbent standard working practice.

Automation:

Chris Burton of GEKU Automation discussed identifying automation projects for moulding companies. He presented case studies of customers that had used robots and recorded high productivity, showed how to identify where automation can help a company save money and explained the difference between robot types including cobots and Delta/scara robots. One PPE customer that invested in robots heavily has grown from £20m sales in 2019 with 248 people to £70m in 2023 with 236 people, proving the higher productivity gains.

Customer comments on the 100th event

Justin Davies, managing director of Tex Plastics, said. “What stood for me at the event was the recognition and importance of energy efficiency, and the need to analyse the processes and grasp hold of this. Tex Plastics has a lot of energy measuring equipment and we are now planning our production around machines’ energy consumption, so what I have seen today is very encouraging.”

Gary Carter, Special Projects Engineer at Gripple said, “I’ve known Arburg for many years and been in the industry for 29 years. They have always been a very good machine, I’ve used Arburgs at Gripple and previous companies I have worked for. Today, I’ve taken a lot from energy efficiency. How to reduce energy consumption across the breadth of the machine, mould and the process was an eye-opener. I’m going back with a lot of ideas about how we can change things.”

Shaun Brady, managing director of Plastic Mouldings Direct, said: “A 100 year history seems a very long time – then I realised I bought my first Arburg machine from Colin 25 years ago! The new 470 H machine has the new GESTICA control system fitted. I was relieved to see that the interface here is very familiar to the previous one and means I don’t need to learn a whole new interface as you want to programme the machines quickly.”

Chris Young of R A Labone, said: “My first impression is there are a lot of people here, more than I’ve seen at similar events, so good for Arburg. The presentations have been interesting. I am here because we are a very long term customer, we’ve been around even longer than Arburg Ltd. has, and were using their machines when it was run by Hahn + Kolb.

“Energy efficiency is at the top of our list currently, and we’re looking at our machine purchases; what is the best machine for this? There were some very interesting points in Lukas’s talk, such as settings and speeds, where we could save several per cent that could equate to big cost savings, which we had not thought about.”

Words from the MD

Arburg Ltd. managing director Colin Tirel gave a short speech to mark the centenary and key milestones, Arburg’s longevity in the UK and Ireland (approaching 30 years) and gave credit to the support Arburg Ltd. receives from its many long-standing customers and Arburg GmbH.

“It is a great pleasure to be able to mark this incredible milestone at Arburg Ltd,” Colin said. “It is clear that moulders are interested in staying up with the latest technology and thinking, be it the latest technology, energy consumption – especially now – sustainability or digitalisation and look to Arburg for that lead. We are extremely well placed to offer all of these to our customers, well-established and new. And I am really pleased that we had a fantastic response with over 100 people attending on the day.”

In the evening before the open house, customers gathered at the wonderful Welcombe Hotel in Stratford-upon-Avon for a celebration dinner.

For more information on the energy-efficient ARBURG 470 H 1000 400 hybrid machine and any of the technologies mentioned, don’t hesitate to get in touch with Colin Tirel or sales director Nicolas Stein.

Read more news from ARBURG here.

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